We’re back from yet another brief hiatus. For our new readers, this is a weekly piece where we curate the best applications for Windows platform, alongside a handful of Web browser add-ons and extensions.
This week we’ll be looking at a P2P instant messaging client, an online service that makes Wikipedia look elegant, a tool that lets you download images and videos from Instagram, and an app that makes clipboard data available across computers and operating systems.
Desktop Applications
GEGeek Tech Toolkit
GEGeek Tech Toolkit is a collection of a plethora of handy utilities and software touching a vast majority of your computing needs. The suite packs in Web browsers, Java runtime utilities, security suites, compressions tools, and uninstaller programs among many others. To make things organized, all the software have been categorized in accordance with their functionality.
One of the handiest things with this suite is that it comes with a program called Ketarin, which ensures that all the software in the pack can be easily updated. The download file is pretty huge. At 1.6GB, the file upon installation will uncompress to a little north of 3 gigs.
Bleep
Bleep is the marriage between instant messaging service and peer-to-peer network. Formerly known as BitTorrent Chat, Bleep is a decentralized messaging program from BitTorrent Inc – the same organization that made the massively popular BitTorrent client.
What’s interesting about the Bleep is that it doesn’t depend on a central server, instead uses the peer-to-peer network, and encrypts all the conversations. Currently, the service is available in pre-alpha phase, and you will need an invite in order to access it.
4K Stogram
Instagram is a popular photo and video-sharing network. While the service is available across all the popular platforms, the official clients are only good for viewing the content. On Windows desktop platform, there is no official dedicated client at all.
If you want to download the images and photos, you can use 4K Stogram. While it is technically against the service’s terms and condition, on several occasions, it might be necessary for you to download the files.
4K Stogram automatically fetches the media as soon as they become available on the account you follow. It needs to be noted that some images could hog large chunk of data, so you might not want to run the application if you are not in a mood to burn much data.
WhizMouse
If you do a lot of research, and you work requires you to have multiple windows (including browser tabs) open side by side, it could be a jarring task to click through several windows to be able to scroll them. On Windows, or any operating system for that matter, in order to scroll the page of a window, you need that program and window in the active mode.
But if you would rather have all the Windows visible on the screen scroll regardless of their active state, WhizMouse lets you do that. Not only does it allow that, it also adds this functionality to the software that don’t support mouse scrolling by default.
Motivation
Our time is limited. Hence, it is perhaps in your best interest to use more time in doing productive work, and less watching cat videos on YouTube. But if you still need something to remind you that the clock is ticking, here’s a neat Chrome extension Motivation that you might find interesting.
Motivation asks for your birth date, so that it could tell you how older you are getting every day. It swaps the default New Tab Page of the Chrome with its clock page. Next time you want to watch some time-killing website, make sure to have a look at the New Tab Page first.
Watch This
IMDB is one of the holiest places for movie and TV shows buff. The site offers a plethora of information about the title or actor or any other concerned person related to the movie. However, recommending a good show or a movie to watch isn’t one of its strongest suites. And this is the exact problem that many people face. They need a service which could recommend them a good movie tailored to their taste.
Watch This comes very close to being the perfect solution. Available as a Web app, Watch This lets you sort movies based on their IMDB rating, year of release, and the genre. Right below it you will find an option to include unpopular movies, this option will bring the movies that have been rated by only a thousand or fewer people to your attention.
Tabs Board
Switching between dozens of tabs is an exercise in frustration. You can always use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Tab to navigate through tabs, but it could be time consuming. What if you could switch across tabs by voice commands? Say which website’s tab you want to head over to, and you automatically get promoted there? That’s exactly what Tabs Board offers.
Once you’ve installed the extension, you can press Ctrl + Shift + B, and tell which tab (the name of the website), and you will be taken there.
HaveClip
Clipboard is one the handiest features in any operating system. Copy text, image, or any other object from one app, paste that into another. But what if you could access clipboard data from one system – running Windows, Linux or Mac into another? That’s what HaveClip does for you.
HaveClip is an open-source application that syncs you data across devices and operating systems over a network. However, do note that it could lag at times.
Modern Apps
Runtastic
All you health enthusiasts can use Runtastic apps on your Windows 8 powered devices. The service makes you do a range of exercises — sit-ups, push-ups and squats. The app analyzes your health pattern and needs, and accordingly creates health sessions for you that you are required to take part in.
Do note that several features of the Runtastic – like squats and sit-ups will only work if your device supports accelerometer. Similarly, the pushups app will need touch interface. Download SitUpsPushUps and Squats.
Online Services
WikiWand
Wikipedia is one of the top 10 most visited websites on the planet. The encyclopedia is a great place if you’re looking for a reference. However, as handy as the Wikipedia is, its user interface, and design in general leave a lot to be desired. This is where WikiWand comes into the play.
WikiWand allows users to look for all the Wikipedia articles from its website. The service gives the mammoth encyclopedia a modern look. Alternatively, users can also use its Chrome extension, and get directed to the WikiWant website whenever they make a query on Wikipedia or land there for some reason.
WikiWant’s interface offers a static menu bar on the left that truncates and links to the different sections of a Wikipedia entry. Among other noticeable things, the service also gives you a preview of the page when you hover over a link.
Software Update
Over the past few weeks, several app got updated. The list includes Calibre, WindowBlinds, Avira Free Antivirus, Flash Player, Internet Download Manager, Foxit Reader, Power DVD, Java Runtime, Opera, AVG Free, uTorrent, BitTorrent, and Dropbox among several others.
Tip of the week: Download gifs of YouTube videos with this simple hack
There’s a pretty easy trick if you want to grab the gif file version of any YouTube video. You can do so by just adding “gif” (without the quotes) before youtube.com. For instance, if the URL address of the concerning video is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyodbr13QGg&
you need to make it like this
http://www.gifyoutube.com/watch?v=Gyodbr13QGg
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