If you’re a regular Windows user, you’re used to system notifications popping up in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. “Your battery is low,” “This version of Windows may not be legitimate,” “Your anti-virus solution may be out-of-date,” “You are now [illegally] connected to [your neighbor's] wireless network” and, of course, “You have new Windows Updates available.”

As if these weren’t enough, the open-source/freeware product Snarl exists solely to double your notification pleasure.

While providing you with some of the same notifications you already receive (battery is low, audio is muted, etc.), Snarl also enables even more notifications for those that either have OCD or just need to always be “in-the-know.”  Examples include notifications for: hourly time updates, timer countdowns, more-specific power/battery notifications and more. Plus, like any truly-great application, Snarl supports extendability. For those that like the concept of this application, this is where it really gets interesting. Developers (or even you) can even write their own Snarl applications so that you can be visually notified for every event imaginable.

Want to be notified of a recent Tweet? New emails (even Exchange emails)? New Google Wave messages? New weather alerts? Snarl has you covered.

Plus, if you’re a true nerd, you’ll certainly appreciate how much granular control over what you’re notified about and how exactly you’re notified.

G’head and check it out: http://www.fullphat.net.

[Source: downloadsquad.com]

We’re all about portable apps here at Fans of Tech. Why? Well, the more crap that gets installed into different directories on your system (and in the registry), the slower your computer’s gonna be. That’s a fact. With portable apps, you just download the program and just, well, run it. That’s it. It’s a beautiful thing, really.

That said, we typically opt for installer-free apps that we can just drop in a single directory to be synced on all of our machines. (I personally currently use SugarSync now.)

A standalone app to burn CDs or DVDs is just one example of what I’m talking about. No clunky installs of Nero (which I think weighs in at about 400mb now) or Sonic or anything similar… just double-click the portable app’s EXE and start burnin’. There are more than a few portable burning suites that we’ve encountered in the past but the following titles are some of the more solid entries.

First up is daBurner. Sure, it’s the youngest of the bunch but you shouldn’t let that fool ya… as it does exactly what you need it to do: burn stuff. Here’s the official description: “No advanced burning options and complicated configuration. No integrated backup-mediacenter-slideshow-virtual drive stuff. It’s just a stupid burner. For smart people.” This one is aces in my book if not only for that beautiful description but also for the fact that the software is genuinely insanely-easy to use… unlike many burning apps.

Next up is Infrarecorder. It’s definitely more feature-packed than DaBurner and offers up dual-layer DVD recording, CD/DVD-RW erasing, ISO & BIN/CUE burning, disc copying, audio track burning and more. Infrarecorder’s been around for a while so there’s definitely something to be gained from its experience.

Finally, we come to DeepBurner. This one isn’t as feature-packed as Infrarecorder but it’s got a pretty polished interface and it provides you with the basic functionality you need: burn audio discs, data discs, ISOs and bootable discs. The premium version of DeepBurner adds a few more options but there’s no portable version available for it.

There are some more (potentially more powerful) standalone burning apps listed on PortableFreeware.com but some of these require a little bit of manipulation to make them “portable.”

If, however, you do prefer the old-school method of running apps like these, i.e., by installing them, you’ll want to check out CDBurnerXP: a great, lightweight burning suite from the makers of Ketarin. In addition, the latest release of IMGBurn added a plethora of new features (no, seriously, go look at the changelog for ImgBurn 2.5) and it could potentially take my title for best free burning app available… period. It is, without a doubt, definitely worth the measly $2 donation that the author is kindly asking for on the app’s homepage. Do it. Be a hero. Donate that $2.

Did we miss any? (I can guarantee we did.) Let us know what your favorite portable burning app is in the comments below.

I can be a Microsoft fanboy from time to time, I’ll admit that. I’ll also admit that I’ve been looking forward to Outlook 2010 since Outlook 2007 first arrived… mainly because when OL2K7 was released to manufacturers in late 2006, it was STILL missing alot of productivity features; some of which Gmail debuted with almost 3 years prior. I’m talking about conversation view, the ability to quickly move a message to a specific folder, effective keyboard shortcuts, etc.

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QuickJump (for Windows) is, without a doubt, one of those applications for which you didn’t realize there was a need until you actually used it.

I can’t tell you how many times a day I look for different folders on my PC or on my network shares at work. It’s just a fact of life. To find those folders, the average Windows user has to pull up Windows Explorer (perhaps starting with “My Computer” or “My Documents”) and double-click until they think they can’t double-click anymore… just to find the folder they’re looking for. I personally just hit Start+R on Windows to bring up the “Run” dialog box and then start typing in the full path of the folder I’m seeking. It’s quicker for me than the aforementioned process but it’s still annoying.

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Mozilla announced the official 1.0 release of Prism: the utility designed to enable your favorite web apps to live outside the browser.

Not only does Prism allow end users to create separate desktop apps for each of their favorite sites (think Gmail, Facebook, etc.), it also allows site devs to specify certain settings that can be activated specifically on Prism apps… settings like fonts, proxy settings, tray icons, etc.

The following is just a snippet of information about Prism’s history and future but you can read more on the official release post… or just check out prism.mozilla.com.

“The ability to run stand-alone web apps and access them like normal desktop apps provides instant benefits to end users. However, a number of the advantages are only available when software developers take advantage of Prism-specific features. With the release of Prism 1.0 beta we are ready to start fostering an ecosystem that makes it easier for developers to create and distribute compelling web app bundles.”

Are you using Prism… or do you just prefer the application shortcuts that can be created by Google’s Chrome browser? Voice your opinions in the comments.

Update: Just so you know, there are two ways to go about using Prism: a desktop application (for the Linux, Mac & Windows platforms – run it and just fill in the URL of the site you’d like to turn into a separate desktop app) or by the Prism Firefox extension.