Happy Friday!

Today I have three freebies for you: a desktop skinner, a web-based bookmark repository, and a really cool JVM clustering technology from Terracotta.

Xilokit announced Deskloop 1.4, a new content organizational tool for Windows. Deskloops users can organize open windows and applications and group them into a single project or file called the loop. The loop, with its own unique file extension, displays all open content, such as web sites, data files, images, spreadsheets, PDFs and other applications and links windows end to end in one loop that can be rapidly scrolled horizontally across the desktop. The loop environment enables a user to group all content related to a project or task for more efficient orientation, organization and collaboration.

All content in a loop is visible as 'thumbnails' in the drop down 'strip,' which provides a easily accessed environment for organizing projects and tasks. The strip displays all open content at once, and enables users to arrange, scroll, save, and e-mail content to others quickly and efficiently. The strip is also a search platform, which supports rapid browsing, downloading and saving of multiple web pages for research, comparison shopping, information and entertainment.

You can download Deskloops 1.4 here.

The second freebie this week is iFaves, a new, free bookmark manager that saves users time and frustration by replacing the "add-to-favorites" functionality of existing browsers with features such as remote access, instant sharing, descriptive notes, tag-based organization and a customizable start page.

Some things you can do with iFaves:

• save favorite links securely on a central server (no need to worry about backing them up or losing them in case of a computer failure)


• automatically and instantly share with individuals or groups


• remotely access saved bookmarks (and all other functionality) from any computer connected to the internet


• store descriptive information about individual web pages, such as login information


• find and view saved bookmarks in multiple ways including search queries, by date, and by usage statistics

use single or multiple tags (short descriptive words) for organizing via a tree view

• create notes, to-do lists, diaries, blogs and more


• view enhanced web content, such as RSS news feeds and thumbnails of bookmarked photos.

The third freebie this week is from Terracotta. Terracotta does some pretty cool things, but this one, recently announced at JavaOne, is just awesome. It's a JVM clustering tool that provides stateful failover between Java-based applications automagically. It's non-intrusive - the only change you'll make to your application is to use the Terracotta provided script to start the application so it can hook into the JVM where necessary. A Terracotta server provides instantanteous synchronization and sharing of the JVM's memory across multiple JVMs. Even if all applications or servers die, as long as the Terracotta server is still running, your data is still available when the apps restart.

It can be used for instant collaboration, failover, or high availability needs. The Express edition, which can cluster up to 4 JVMs, is free. Larger installations or those requiring assistance can purchase support on an annual basis at very affordable prices starting at about $4000/year.

You can check out the Terracotta technology and download the latest version to play with at its website.

Happy JVM clustering!