Transmission is an Open Source Mac (also Linux) BitTorrent client that seems to be getting some buzz. I've never used a BitTorrent client on my Mac (the only place I used it is on my Linux box to download various gigantic Linux ISO files). If you've tried Transmission, let us know how it is working for you.

While looking for the latest version of CCleaner, I noticed that Piriform also has a freeware Windows disk defragmentation utility now.

Defragglr 1.01.068 BETA

If you've used McAfee's SiteAdvisor to flag potentially dangerous web searches, the new Yahoo/McAfee dangerous web site team-up will look familiar to you. I went to Yahoo Search and searched for free downloads since I was pretty sure it would result in a few dangerous sites being listed in the search results. I found it interesting that McAfee highlighted the sponsored search result as a dangerous site. This is a good thing since it indicates that they aren't playing favorites.

I'm not a fan of Java or Eclipse. So, I didn't expect much from Sun's recent Java-built IDE release...

NetBeans IDE 6.1

If you want to try Ubuntu Linux but don't want to repartition your Windows hard disk, this might be the tool for you to consider...

Wubi - Ubuntu Installer for Windows

Neverball is an Open Source multiplatform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) graphical game. I haven't tried it yet. The reason it interests me is that it can make use of the the Apple MacBook's sudden motion sensor and played by moving that notebook in space.

The Google-ians have been really busy lately. Here's what's new according to the Google Docs Official Google Docs Blog...

1. Speaker notes for your presentations
2. Inserting YouTube videos into slides
3. View (but not edit) presentations and spreadsheets offline using Google Gears

I just followed a link from Techmeme (which has replaced Digg as my source for tech news) over to an article on TorrentFreak reporting that Filesharing Report Shows Explosive Growth for uTorrent. The report says that uTorrent is now the most installed bittorrent client overtaking the Open Source Azureus torrent client.

I'm still trying to understand why this is reported on CNet but not mentioned anywhere in Zoho's official blog...

Zoho to integrate with Google sign-on

However, assuming this is true, that will be one less login/password combination to remember someday. It is a little surprising to learn about this though. I can't think of any other service that Google has partnered with in this way. I still can't login to YouTube or GrandCentral with a Google login and Google owns those properties.

Sitting at an airport gate last week, I began wondering about my MacBook's battery and then starting thinking about the other kinds of sensors Macs have. The result is a long-form blog item I wrote for the O'Reilly Mac Center titled...

Monitoring Mac Battery Levels, Temperature, and Motion with Freeware/Open Source Apps

MySQL Workbench 5.0.19 is an Open Source visual database design tool for Microsoft Windows provided by Sun/MySQL. I haven't tried it out yet. But, as a relatively heavy MySQL user, I plan to do so soon. Note that it requires the Microsoft .Net 2.0 Framework for Windows XP (.Net comes with Vista).

I noticed that my Google Docs offline feature was turned on today. Google Gears took what seemed like less than a minute to synchronize files. There's an icon on my desktop to quickly access files in offline mode.

I don't use T-Mobile Hotspots often. However, I have been using it while in Seattle this week. It was the first time I used the Hotspots since switching my Macbook to OpenDNS supplied DNS servers. Unfortunately, you can't get to T-Mobile's proxy on the inside of their network (makes sense) when using OpenDNS servers. So, I removed the OpenDNS DNS entries for now. I should have created a new profile but was in a rush to get things working and didn't think that far ahead :-)

Just a quick note that I attended an informal meetup to discuss Microsoft IronRuby during the first day of the Microsoft MVP Global Summit in Seattle. You can find my blog post about it on the O'Reilly ONLamp Port 25 blog...

IronRuby Meetup at the Microsoft MVP Global Summit

I dunno. Does the world really need another branded media player?

Adobe Media Player

OK, it is a content aggregator. But, doesn't Joost do this too? Whatever happened to Joost anyway? It was a big deal a year again. Now, no one talks about it.

I wrote an long-ish commentary for O'Reilly Media's Mac Center about the amazing transformation of a somewhat interesting note taking application for Windows to a standout multi-platform note taking app that syncs to a free web service:

Evernote: Notes Everywhere - Mac, Web, Phone

The Google Docs Blog announced the...

Save your presentations to PowerPoint

...feature the other day. I checked my Google Docs account to verify it. Still waiting for the Google Docs (documents) Google Gears offline support to kick in though.