Caffeine – Free

The simplest application on the list is also my favorite. One click of Caffeine’s icon in your menu bar prevents you Mac from going to sleep, dimming the screen, or starting a screensaver. Click it again, and your Mac’s display settings go back to normal. It’s a simple concept, but it’s infinitely useful, especially whenever you’re watching videos or giving a presentation using your Mac.

Google Chrome – Free

There’s certainly nothing wrong with Apple’s Safari browser, but Google Chrome has the edge. What stands out the most about Chrome is that it’s fast. VERY fast. It launches faster than any browser I’ve ever used, and websites render remarkably quickly. You also do all your searches right in the address bar, which might sound odd at first, but once you get used to it, you realize it’s usefulness and won’t ever want to go back to having separate search and address bars.

Growl - Free

Growl is a notification system, allowing other applications to notify you of certain events via unobtrusive pop-ups. For example, iTunes can tell you what song it just started playing, iChat can let you know you just got an instant message, and Transmission can tell you is just finished downloading a torrent. Growl is fully customizable, from the looks of the notifications to how they behave (on an app-by-app basis, which is especially handy).

Tweetie – Free (ad-supported) / $19.95 (ad-free)

With so many Twitter applications to choose from, it’s tough for one to stand out for the rest. But Tweetie does just that. Not only does it have an elegant, Mac-like design, but it does all the little things right. URL shortening and image sharing are built right in. Conversation mode allows you to easily keep track of back-and-forth replies, and direct message conversations are threaded for quick viewing.

Blogo – $25 (21-day free trial)

I’ve tried nearly every desktop blogging application available for the Mac. Coming from Windows Live Writer on the PC, my bar for a blogging application was set quite high, and Blogo was the only application that met all my needs. I needed an application which made it convenient to write the post, made it simple to add and manage images, and that would allow me to preview exactly what my finished post would look like. Blogo does all that, and more. My favorite feature, though, is the fullscreen mode, which makes it easy to concentrate on writing.

Cinch - $7

When Microsoft introduced Windows 7, there was one particular feature that stood out as remarkably useful, Snap, which allows users to quickly place windows side-by-side or have them fill the screen. Apple’s OS X operating system, as excellent as it is, has no feature like it. Fortunately, there’s Cinch, which essentially replicates Snap’s features on the Mac. The company that makes Cinch, Irradiated Software, also offers a similar program called SizeUp which offers a few more features and takes a keyboard-centric approach to window management.

Alarm Clock 2 – Free

There’s more than a few alarm clock applications out there. Robbie Hanson’s is easy-to-use and offers all the features you need, with none of the ones you don’t. Alarm Clock 2 sits in your menu bar for easy access. It allows you to set as many alarms as you need, and they can be either one-time or repeating. You can use the program’s buzzer sound as the alarm sound, or if you’d rather customize how you wake up, you can use any song you’d like. My favorite feature is “Easy Wake,” which slowly increases the alarm volume over a timespan you select. It also supports the Apple remote for pressing snooze!

You left that life behind after your gang left you for dead.

But the past has a way of catching up with people. The government wants your former gang eliminated, and they want you to do their dirty work for them. They’ve taken your wife and son hostage to make sure you cooperate.

And so begins Red Dead Redemption, a stunning and compelling adventure in the twilight days of the Wild West.

The first thing you’ll notice about RDR is the absolute beauty of the world you’re immersed in. From the vast plains of southern Texas to the sprawling deserts of Mexico, the environment feels entirely authentic.

The controls are going to feel familiar to anyone who has played any of the recent installments of the Grand Theft Auto series.

The same can be said for the mission system. GTA fans are going to feel right at home in RDR.

But in spite of the similarities, Red Dead Redemption stands on its own.

One of the more interesting aspects RDR introduces is the concept of your choices and actions affecting how the game’s population responds to you.

Save a damsel in distress from a posse of bandits? You earn honor points. Rob a nun at gunpoint? You lose honor points.

Players with a high honor level earn discounts at most shops and townsfolk overlook minor crimes. Those with low honor are offered discounts in the crime-ridden town of Thieves’ Landing and can bribe witnesses to keep their mouths shut about crimes for less.

You also gain fame points for many of your actions, such as completing a mission or winning a duel.

Another standout feature of Red Dead Redemption is called “dead-eye,” which allows players to slow down time and take out targets with absolute precision during gunplay.

But perhaps the most impressive aspect of Red Dead Redemption is that there’s never a shortage of things to do.

There are plenty of wild animals to hunt, plants to collect, challenges to complete, strangers to help, treasure to find, and mini-games to play, including the ever-popular Texas hold’em.

Simply put, Red Dead Redemption is a big game that gets all the little things right. The voice acting is superb, the world is expansive and immersive, the combat is smooth, especially with the “dead-eye” system, and you always have plenty to keep you entertained.

Recommendation: BUY.

Touchscreens have quickly become the new norm in the mobile phone industry, but despite the advancements in the technology, typing on a touchscreen still remains frustrating for most users.

Cliff Kushler, the man who brought you T9 predictive text technology is back with a solution for touchscreen texting: Swype.

Swype’s brilliance is in its simplicity. Instead of hunting and pecking for every character of a text message, Swype allows you to slide your finger across the keyboard from letter to letter, and it predicts the word you intended to type.

Its accuracy is remarkable, and it lets you incorporate apostrophes and other characters as needed.

It also learns as you use it. If you need to type a word that is not in Swype’s dictionary, simply type it in as you would normally, and the next time you need it, Swype will remember it.

That includes usernames and e-mail addresses, which is incredibly convenient.

Without a doubt, Kushler and his partners are on to something huge with Swype. It is much faster and much easier than the traditional hunt-and-peck virtual keyboards, and we will likely see Swype pre-installed on a wide array of phones in the next couple of years.

Swype is still in beta, which is evident when it occasionally slows down, but with its recent update, it seems that the developers have worked out most of the bugs.

Learn more at Swype.com, and if you have an Android phone, sign up to be notified when they re-open the beta so you can try Swype for yourself.

For the entirety of Tim Tebow’s still-young football career, he’s been blessed (and cursed) with a remarkably loyal following, especially in his hometown of Jacksonville, Fla.

These days, now that the former Florida quarterback has been drafted by the Denver Broncos, these fans call themselves “BroncoGators” and don custom-made apparel combining the two teams’ logos.

When Tebow’s hometown Jacksonville Jaguars did not select him in the draft, his fans were enraged, with many deeming the non-selection of Tebow as the end of the Jaguars in Jacksonville.

Draft15.com, which campaigned for the Jaguars to select Tebow in the months leading up to the 2010 NFL Draft, told the Jaguars in a message on the site that the team let their fans down and thanked them for “doing everything [they] can “to win a Super Bowl”…for the Los Angeles Jaguars.”

Let their fans down? Hardly.

Fans don’t base their loyalty to a team on whether or not they draft one particular player. Fans don’t turn their backs on their team and hope that they are forced to relocate to Los Angeles.

No, fans stand by their team, in the good times and the bad. No matter who they draft.

These “fans” were never Jaguar fans. They care about the success of one player more than the success of their local team.

And you know what? More power to them.

After all, I’m rooting for Tebow too. He’s a class act and works as hard as any player in history, so he deserves to succeed and I hope he does. Except for when he’s playing against the Jaguars. And that’s the difference.

So, “BroncoGators,” when Tebow’s career is over, and the Jaguars, still in Jacksonville, are doing well, don’t come back. We don’t want you. We want true fans.

Ones who are true to the teal.

When I first signed up for Twitter in March 2007, the social networking site was just beginning to find an audience. But most of the people joining then were habitual early-adopters, not average social network users.

Two years later, Twitter has finally found significant worldwide popularity, thanks in large part to attention from the mainstream media.

Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and most major news networks have run stories on the social network, and shows such as ESPN’s “Around the Horn” and ABC’s “Good Morning America” have incorporated the site into their broadcasts.

Even celebrities like John Mayer, Ashton Kutcher, Martha Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and Shaquille O’Neal are Twittering these days.

But not everyone understands why the site is suddenly getting so popular.

Whenever I’ve tried to explain Twitter to someone who doesn’t get the site’s appeal, I’ve found that it is actually a very challenging task. After all, on the surface, Twitter can easily look like nothing more than a relative of Facebook’s status updates.

However, there is much more to the site.

To really understand Twitter, you have to dive in and use the service to its fullest.

Connect it to your mobile phone, use a desktop client, reply to other people’s tweets. Most importantly, don’t just follow people you already know. Go find and follow other people whose updates you find interesting, then interact with them. You’ll find yourself having some excellent conversations that way.

Because if you treat Twitter as just a status update service, you’ll be barely scratching the surface of its usefulness, and you’ll probably give up on it quickly.

Why miss out?

Bo Burnham was a typical high school student. He went to class, performed with his school’s theater troupe, and taught himself how to play piano and guitar.

Eventually, he started writing his own comedic songs, and wanted to share them with his older brother, who was off at college. So in December 2006, Burnham uploaded his first two songs to the video-sharing site YouTube.

He got a lot more than he bargained for.

With a comedic style somewhere between Demetri Martin and George Carlin, Burnham quickly became an internet sensation. His videos have been viewed nearly 40 million times.

(watch Burnham’s most viewed video)

Burnham even received a call from the talent agent who represents Dave Chappelle and Drew Carey, who told him “I gotta represent you.”

Now, his YouTube stardom has extended well outside the internet.

He recently released a self-titled CD with Comedy Central Records, and his Comedy Central special will air on March 27.

Hollywood is in his sights, as well. He will appear in Rob Schneider’s “Virgin on Bourbon Street,” and Adam Sandler’s “Funny People.” He also is working with Judd Apatow on what has been described as the anti-“High School Musical.”

Burnham’s success demonstrates YouTube’s growing influence on the entertainment industry, which has embraced the site as a legitimate source for talent.

Brooke Brodack, known on YouTube as ‘Brookers,’ was signed by Carson Daly back in 2006. “What the Buck” host Michael Buckley has a development deal deal with HBO. Musician Terra Naomi scored a record deal with Universal Music Group.

Those are just a few of the many YouTube users to cross over into the mainstream media, and the list keeps growing.

Think you can be the next big thing? Maybe YouTube is the place to be.

Photo: Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com and bub.blicio.us

As online social networks become increasingly prominent in everyday life, competition between the networks is more intense than ever.

In order to keep users interested, the networks are all constantly changing and evolving to try and meet users’ needs and stay one step ahead of the other networks.

And the pressure is greatest when you’re the front-runner.

Just ask Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook. Noticing the rapidly increasing popularity of Twitter, Zuckerberg and his team at Facebook decided to redesign their site in an attempt to stave off their competitor.

The problem is, few Facebook users actually like the Twitter-esque redesign.

Some whining and complaining is inevitable when you change something people are familiar with. That happened the last time Facebook underwent a major redesign, but it did not take the users long to figure out the benefits of the new design and get accustomed to the changes.

That doesn’t seem to be happening this time around. Instead, Facebook has tried to become so much like Twitter that it has neglected much of what made it popular to begin with.

Everything on Facebook, status updates, wall posts, posted photos, shared links, and so on, is now incorporated into one Twitter-like stream.

And it just doesn’t work. Facebook’s news feed was once a well-organized set of highlights from what your friends are up to. Now, it’s a jumbled mess of everything your friends post to Facebook.

“I can’t find anything,” one user writes, “I don’t know what my own status is half the time!”

Another writes, “stop trying to be Twitter, stick with what you are/were good at and put the news feed back to how it was.”

That is the popular sentiment, it seems. In a Facebook poll about the new layout, users’ opinions are very clear. At the time of this writing, approximately 545,000 users voted against the layout. Only 34,000 voted approvingly.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but for Facebook, it may prove to be the network’s biggest mistake yet.

“I’m almost ready to use MySpace again,” said one Facebook user.

Ouch.

Matt Jones’ arrest for violation of his probation and his subsequent release by the Jacksonville Jaguars is yet another black spot on what has been a tumultuous year for the team.

The team’s troubles began in September, right before the start of the regular season. Offensive lineman Richard Collier was shot 14 times outside of an apartment building in downtown Jacksonville while waiting for a friend with his teammate, Kenny Pettway. Two of the bullets struck Collier’s spine, leaving him paraplegic, and his left leg had to be amputated.

Just like that, Collier’s football career was over, and his teammates were in shock.

The team lost its first two games, including a tough rivalry game against the Tennessee Titans.

And though they won the two games that followed, they would win only three more for the rest of the season, and would end the season at 5-11.

Most of the on-the-field struggles can be attributed to injuries, primarily on the offensive line, which had almost every starter suffer a significant injury.

The receiving corps was also of little help. The team led the league in dropped passes. The team’s leading receiver was, incidentally, Matt Jones.

Jones is not even the only player with legal troubles.

Wide receiver Reggie Williams was arrested for DWI and possession of marijuana. Like Jones, he was released. Another receiver, Dennis Northcutt, is being sued in Los Angeles for allegedly arranging the beating of his pregnant ex-girlfriend.

Now, the team must recover from its character issues as well as fill the many holes on the roster that were created this offseason. The team needs to find quality players for its offensive line, its receiving corps, and nearly its entire defense.

Those are tough tasks, and its up to head coach Jack Del Rio and recently-promoted general manager Gene Smith to put together a team that can bounce back from what might be the most difficult year in franchise history.

If they don’t succeed, Del Rio will likely be looking for a new job next year.

Photo: The Spinnaker

After an abysmal ten years of men’s basketball at the University of North Florida, head coach Matt Kilcullen was fired Sunday.

Kilcullen will leave UNF with an overall record of 98-186, and his team finished his final season at 8-22, which is considered an improvement compared to other seasons in recent memory.

The decision comes not long after Lee Moon from the University of Alabama-Birmingham was hired as UNF’s new athletic director.

Moon has stressed the importance of improving the University’s basketball program, as without a football team, basketball is the school’s flagship sport.

Attendance at basketball games and other UNF sporting events is consistently low. If you ask students why, they will all give you some form of the same answer:

“The teams suck.”

And now that the Ospreys will be eligible for postseason play for the first time this coming season as the school finishes its four-year transition to Division I, winning, and the fan support that comes with it, is more important than ever.

Social networking has come a long way since Friendster and MySpace first hit it big.

Originally, these social networks were more of an internet sideshow, a simple way for people to make some new friends, and get back in touch with old ones.

Now, however, social networking has become so ingrained in our increasingly technological culture that it is a part of everyday life for many.

Sit in the back of any college classroom and you will likely see Facebook’s familiar blue navigation bar displayed across the top of laptop screens all around the room as students tune out their professor and tune in to what their friends are up to.

Though Facebook was originally exclusively for college students, the site expanded in 2006 to allow anyone to join in, and it has reached an unprecedented level of popularity since. It recently surpassed MySpace as the largest social network, with over 175 million active members worldwide.

And it’s not just kids and college students flocking to the site. It is no longer unusual for a student to be friends with their parents, or in some cases even grandparents, on Facebook.

Many people, it seems, are now more likely to contact someone via Facebook than by e-mail. Some college professors have even found that their students contact them more frequently and comfortably on Facebook.

The site has rapidly become a key part of modern socialization.

Although it is easily the most popular, Facebook is far from the only social network people have turned to for keeping in touch with their friends.

Hear several people receive a text message simultaneously? It’s probably a post from one of the group’s friends on Twitter.

Twitter is a much simpler service than most social networks. It asks its users “what are you doing?” and gives them 140 characters with which to respond.

You can answer this question on the site itself, but the real novelty of Twitter is that you can easily post to it by text message, and your friends’ posts, called “tweets,” can be sent to your phone.

These tweets frequently turn into full conversations between a whole group of friends regardless of where they are, and without any of them needing to use a computer.

Even television networks such as CNN and ESPN have gotten in on the action, with hosts asking viewers to follow their Twitter accounts and respond to their posts.

The usage of social networks has ballooned in just a few short years, and they have cemented their place in modern society. And as the various networks evolve in a competition for users, we can look forward to the next big social networking innovation, whatever that may be.