Desktop Earth 2.1.1

Desktop Earth is a wallpaper program that will appeal to users who are curious about what Earth looks like from space. By updating constantly and operating on a simple premise, this is a fun and interesting way to spice up your desktop.

This free program embeds its icon in your desktop tray and provides a basic set of options to alter the wallpaper. The wallpaper itself is an enormous photograph of Earth from space and takes up all of your desktop space with no area uncovered. The continents appear clearly and most views provide a glimpse of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and slightly less than half of the entire globe from east to west. Desktop Earth impresses not only on its clear view, but the options users can tinker with. Users can cycle through all the time zones in the world to zero in on the corner they want to view from space. There is also a drop-down menu allowing for the picture to be updated every 5 minutes, 15 minutes, and hour. In addition, a slider allows for cloud cover to be erased for a clearer picture of land and sea. Finally, users can adjust the daytime image to get a better topographical view and the nighttime image to show natural moonlight, city lights, and more.

Desktop Earth is a simple tool that gives desktops a lot of character. Thanks to its clean picture and intriguing options, we highly recommend this download.

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Desktop Brazileiras Bikini Calendar 2010

Free 12 month Bikini calendar of Brazilian girls for your computer desktop. A different beautiful Brazileira for your viewing pleasure every month of the year. The calendar is updated monthly so it is always current.

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StarCraft: Terran Theme 1.0

This Windows theme has StarCraft cursors, icons, wallpaper, and sound. The cursors are mostly original, and the icons are taken from the game.

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Animated Wallpaper: Watery Desktop 3D 3.39

Add life to your desktop wallpaper! Watery Desktop 3D will animate your wallpaper with water effects, such as waves and rain. It will also work as a screen saver which floods your screen, you'll see how everything on your desktop will sink into water.

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Google Earth

The latest version of Google Earth continues to set the mapping paradigm. Accessible enough for casual users, Google has added features that make it a necessity for those whose topographic desires are more serious. Although Google Ocean is the big newsmaker in version 5, you can also check out the surface of our nearest neighbor, Mars, as well as incorporating historical Earth maps.

If you'll forgive the pun, the oceanic maps are pretty cool. They provide the capability to plunge to the floor of the sea, view exclusive content from the BBC and National Geographic, and explore shipwrecks like the Titanic in 3D. Exploring the Martian surface is limited to data provided from NASA, but that's not much of a limitation considering that it's unlikely that most of us will ever get to visit the Red Planet. Switching between Google Earth, Sky, and Mars can be done from the menubar or from the planet icon on the toolbar.

Most of the interface's real estate displays a rendering of the globe, which can zoom in on a satellite image of your destination once you've keyed it in. Controls live on a top toolbar and a left-side navigation window that lets you quickly jump between different views and locations. Google's Street View, real-time illumination of the Earth, roads, restaurants, and even crime statistics can be displayed. Smooth integration with Google's 3D rendering program SketchUp means that you can design buildings and see how they'd interact with their surroundings on the fly.

The only downside to the program is that it can consume a large amount of RAM, so older machines might experience performance issues, but even that can now be configured through the Options menu. Everyone else is bound to love Google Earth, both as an entertaining novelty and an informational tool.

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Google Talk

Google Talk offers you a choice to get in touch over email, IM, or a call; a quality talk through your computer but hear your friends as if they were in the same room; and convenience of your Gmail contacts which are pre-loaded into Google Talk so inviting or talking to your friends is just a click away.
Version 1.0.0.104 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

What's new in this version:

Version 1.0.0.104 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes

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Pidgin 2.7.3

Your mother uses AOL Instant Messenger. Your spouse prefers MSN. Your office insists on Yahoo. What are you going to do? You could run all those chat clients at once, or you could use Gaim, now renamed Pidgin. Like Trillian, Fire, and other third-party IM clients, this open-source messaging application lets you access multiple IM networks from one window, including Google Talk and MySpaceIM as well as lesser-known protocols such as Jabber and Gadu-Gadu.

Pidgin's biggest change is the redesigned interface. The Buddy List can be viewed in Basic or Advanced mode, and the most important features, including the Plug-in List, have been graduated from the Preferences window into their own panes. Twenty-two plug-ins come prepackaged as Pidgin repositions itself as a highly extensible chat client.

The IM features are unimpeachable: smileys (you can find tons of emoticons on the developer's site), file transfers, and multiperson chats. The Buddy Pounce feature lets you automatically perform certain actions (play a sound, execute a command, open an IM window) when a contact signs on or off. Pidgin also gets lots of intangibles right: logging and time-stamping, for instance, are well-executed and easy to access. However, it lacks IP telephony and video conferencing, and there are still some bugs--most notably in the Help menu. Still, Pidgin remains a highly recommended text-only messaging app. 

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Yahoo Messenger 10

Get social over the long-established, well-rounded chat and VoIP client Yahoo Messenger and you'll find drag-and-drop capabilities and contact importing from friends other IM, e-mail, and social-networking accounts who are also on Yahoo chat. Another favorite trick is the ability to see images and videos displayed inside the chat window when you or a pal drops in a public URL.

Yahoo Messenger 10 adds some visual enhancements that call out VoIP and video chats on the conversation window. Tweaks in the buddy list showcase an updates tab that operates as a newsfeed for friends' status messages. Other visual refreshes to version 10 spruce up select icons.

Users should note that the download stub will finish installing the program online, and that the download bundles the Yahoo Toolbar. In the preinstallation window, click over to Custom Install to deselect add-ons you don't want. We could also live without the heavy-handed Yahoo branding, and it would be nice to see a link to hidden smileys in the emoticon drop-down, but these are minor niggles when weighed against the benefits of an easy-to-use, feature-rich chat client that only continues to improve.

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