The Daily Download

One of the things I've noticed in the emerging wave of iPhone applications is that many of the highest rated applications could be found on the App Store's illegitimate precursor--Nullriver's application installer. Several of these applications have been under almost constant development for the greater part of a year, long before Apple made the SDK available. In the case of newcomer Twinkle, that extra time really shows.

You might remember our hands-on with Twinkle back in April. Its claim to fame is that it mixes in location-based services with Twitter, not only letting you tweet with your location to show to others, but also see what users around you are up to within various location radii. Other Twitter apps on the iPhone have location as well, but none add this extra level of exploration. One of the perks of legitimacy is that there are more people using this than before, making it beneficial as long as you live in a place with high iPhone saturation.

Location isn't the only improvement though, the application now has far more user-friendly error handling. Whether you've got a bad connection or Twitter is down, it'll let you know with grace (this weekend's S3 outages and Twitter downtime didn't help). It's even got an amusing whale tail in reference to Twitter's now infamous icon of service failure.

The legitimate iPhone version also adds in a new profile feature that is quite cunning. Tapulous, the creators of Twinkle as well as Tap Tap Revolution (also formerly a jailbroken iPhone app), have created a universal profile system that goes across all of its applications. This means if you've registered in one program, it will port over your credentials to the other.

In the case of Twinkle, this new profile system ends up being a little confusing because sorting through tweets from those around you presents your Tapulous account information, while regular Tweets just link off to your Twitter account with that specific profile picture.

All in all, Twinkle has retained much of its original spirit with this new iteration. Over the weekend Tapulous sponsored a scavenger hunt to take advantage of the application's photo-sharing feature. More things like that are likely to attract newbies of both Twitter and the iPhone. Below is a quick demo of it in action.

Digsby will easily be the instant messaging freeware of choice for the super social set. Web 2.0 fans, that's you. In addition to supporting the major IM networks--Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber--Digsby also pulls in Web mail feeds, as well as access to MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. Updating Twitter is a breeze from the application's main interface, though users wishing to do anything more than read Facebook and MySpace feeds will be redirected to their online accounts.

Windows users can initiate text, video, and audio chat from the conversation window, and transfer files, send SMS, and compose e-mail, with a Mac version in the offing. The notification pop-ups for every activity can get distracting, though a deep preference options control nearly every aspect of the display, including a wide variety of skins. Digsby is off to a strong start, but there's room for improvement because of ongoing stability concerns--not to mention the enormous memory-hogging that Digsby is notorious for. Still, Digsby looks to be a game-changer.

The ultimate open-source encryption program, TrueCrypt is loaded with powerful features that those concerned with protecting their data from thievery should want--and have.

It offers 11 algorithms for encrypting your private files in a password-protected volume. You can store your encrypted data in files (containers) or partitions (devices). TrueCrypt works hard to offer powerful data protection, recommending complex passwords, explaining the benefits of hidden volumes, and erasing telltale signs of the encryption process, including mouse movements and keystrokes. Though the interface may not be immediately intuitive, its powerful, on-the-fly encryption for no cost still earns the freeware security tool a top rating.

The latest version gives users the ability to create a hidden operating system, encrypted away from nosy busybodies, but make no mistake--TrueCrypt is not for the casual encryption explorer. Online help is plentiful and detailed, but be sure to thoroughly understand what you're doing with the program before you do something regrettable.

Lightning makes Thunderbird soar above Outlook for home use, and places it on nearly equal ground in the office. It includes an overhauled interface with easy-to-use buttons for jumping between e-mail and your calendar, LDAP directory support for event invites, and Sun Java Calendar Server support.

Work on the plug-in is now handled by Mozilla as it prepares to integrate its code into Thunderbird for the big Version 3 update coming later this year, but that doesn't mean Lightning isn't ready to be used now. A menu bar for switching between mail and calendar views can live either above or below the folder tree on the left. On the right side of the main pane is a new panel for quickly viewing and managing events and tasks. Events are searchable at the calendar top, and the display of events is highly customizable. Lightning supports multiple calendars, including iCal, and has bidirectional support for Google Calendar with the unfortunately separate Provider for Google Calendar plug-in.

There is also support for Exchange servers, although for enterprise use fans of Thunderbird/Lightning will likely have to talk to the tech support teams to get the servers configured properly. That, of course, is the biggest drawback compared with using Outlook. Old bugs relating to time-zone management and invitation responses have been eliminated, though, making this add-on an absolute requirement for all users, both at home and in the office.

When Power Downloader needs to set a schedule for his computer to do basic tasks when he's not around, he needs to rely on a robust scheduler that can handle not only shutting down the computer, but also launching programs, leave him reminder notes, and cleaning directories. For all that and--cliched as it sounds--more, Power D relies on the freeware Z-Cron.

Z-Cron's list of available tasks should make any power user take note.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Similar to the Unix Cron scheduler, and far more powerful than the native Windows task scheduler, Z-Cron is an aggressive sergeant-at-arms, able to tell your computer what to do and when to do it, leaving you to get on with your life when you're away from your machine. Besides the aforementioned tasks, Z-Cron also has the capability to schedule tasks to run daily, weekly, monthly, once, and at the system start-up.

The most interesting tool that Z-Cron possesses, and what makes it such an excellent utility, is that it comes with a database of Embedded Tools. These tools are the basis for everything it can do, and they include a range of tasks such as an alarm clock, the capability to shutdown a remote computer on your network, activating a USB peripheral, and connecting or disconnecting from the Internet.

Power Downloader notes that the installation is in German, although the program is in English. Still, that's not a cause for concern: getting the program going is about as simple as can be. The value of being able to have the computer do necessary tasks while you sleep or while you're away isn't lost on the globe-trotting Power Downloader, and leaving his computer in control of such capable code means never missing an important chore.

My favorite IM application, Trillian, has just put out a brand new build of its upcoming Astra product for alpha testers. New are Facebook notifications and quick shortcuts to jump straight to things like photo galleries and user profiles. Sorely missing from that, however, is Facebook's chat, which is what I think many Trillian users have been pining for (myself included). Free competitor Digsby has had Facebook chat integration since the beginning of May, shortly after the service was launched.

Scott Werndorfer, co-founder and head developer of Trillian, tells me his team is waiting on proper XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) integration with Facebook chat to be finished, something that might be announced at next week's F8 event after originally being promised in mid-May. Until then developers have had to cobble together their own solutions that require the use of your browser--something nobody wants to deal with with their desktop chat application.

The good news is that the new build brings with it support for IRC--the chat medium that has proven to be invaluable for things like live blogging and customer care chat in enterprise businesses. Trillian has full support for administrative controls and server surfing. You can also encrypt the contents of your chat room in case you're sharing personal or business information--something AIM and many others don't provide.

Trillian Astra is currently in private alpha, meaning you'll have to sign up to be a tester to give it a spin. You can find the sign-up page here.

Facebook chat and IRC join Trillian as supported chat protocols.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Yelp and Where are two free location-finding iPhone applications that take vastly different approaches to direct you to what you're looking for.

While my personal preferences anoint Yelp for iPhone (review) the better service for its broader and more objective listings, Where for iPhone's (coverage) plotting of only partnered services will also have its cluster of followers. The bottom line is this: though serviceable, they both need work. Yelp's developers should hone the accuracy and breadth of this application's listings and stabilize performance against crashes. Where would benefit from letting users customize their choices by selecting or rejecting services from a longer list of location-aware partners.

See the particular take of each app in the video above.

Doing for Gmail what the MailTo link does for Outlook, the wonderfully simple gAttach is a small utility that reassigns Gmail as the default mail account from Windows documents. With gAttach installed, selecting Send from Windows Explorer, Firefox, and Microsoft Office automatically attaches the files to a Gmail composition instead of opening a new e-mail in your mail client.

Though effortless, we wish we could associate some file types with gAttach and let others default to the e-mail client. Also missing is a way for gAttach to automatically divide, where possible, e-mail compositions that breach the 20MB upload limit.

There are a lot of notable remote access programs out there, but Remobo is one of the few that's free. It's also an early beta, so I expected to encounter a lot of bugs. And so: there were. But overall, Remobo was surprisingly stable and reasonably effective at allowing remote access both to a secondary computer that I controlled and a friend's machine.

Remobo's remote access allows full control of a secondary computer--when you have the password.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Here's a quick rundown of what Remobo can do. It allows users to create multiple accounts under one user name, so that they can access a secondary or tertiary machine from afar. It also allows you to share files with other Remobo users, and if they've given you their password, you can control their computer, too.

There are two kinds of file-sharing you can use. The first requires having full computer access, which allows you to use the native Windows file-sharing system. The second, which requires less access, is to use Remobo's native file-sharing tool. You add the folders or files you want to share, and then using your BitTorrent client, it automatically creates a torrent that gets downloaded by the computer that's trying to receive the files. If you don't have a torrent client installed, Remobo will try to install BitTorrent 5.2, which unfortunately isn't one of the better clients out there. (Personally, I use μTorrent.)

Remobo's main window.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The remote access feature itself is still a bit wonky. The refresh rate was a step above horrendous, but by no means was it smooth. Once I stayed in a single, graphics-free program like a text editor, it handled typing smoothly. Web browsing, though, and jumping around between open apps was sluggish and in clear need of some work. Unfortunately, this was the case when remotely accessing my own secondary machines as well as my colleague's.

Remobo did give me full access to remote machines, though. I was able to download and install programs remotely, and Remobo's built-in chat worked well. Given that Remobo's remote demands put quite the strain on your processor, not having to run a secondary chat app is a good way to keep the RAM drain down.

Another thing Remobo does well is the fact that all data transferred is encrypted, although the company's Web site doesn't tell you what kind of encryption that is, and that it also allows the establishment of a private VPN.

Built-in chatting cuts down on excessive RAM usage when the hefty Remobo is running.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

However, the free registration was buggy, to say the least. I had problems creating my account on one computer, but was able to log in fine. On another computer, creating the account wasn't the problem--logging in was. There's also no clear, clean way to kill a connection, and forcing the disconnect by shutting down Remobo gave the desired result, as well as an error message.

Remobo touts itself as being a replacement for a costly VPN service and full remote access rolled into one, and the potential is there for that. It's not ready for the starting line quite yet, but it's fun playing with this stock car as it's getting built.

Life is so much easier when you have your most pertinent personal information on hand. SplashID for iPhone and iPod Touch is a premium application ($9.99) that encrypts and password-protects the credit card, frequent flyer, and bank account numbers you've entered into the neatly arranged application. See how it works in this First Look video.

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