TechMiso

Speaking of desktop email clients, Mozilla just unleashed Thunderbird 3.1. The latest Mozilla email client is now based on the Gecko 1.9.2 platform providing improved performance, stability and web compatibility, among other nifty new features.

A new migration assistant wizard helps users move easily across from existing clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail, importing emails, address books, and settings into Thunderbird, whilst new tools including a timeline and filtering tools allow easy and efficient ways to find past emails.

And for those looking to expand their Thunderbird installation with new add-ons and extensions, it’s now easier than ever to install and download them – you can do it straight from the Add-ons Manager.

This looks to be one of the most solid Thunderbird releases to-date. The new account setup is magnitudes easier to use than in previous versions, hopefully facilitating an increased adoption rate for the less tech savvy users out there. There are a load of additional new features worth reading about as well.

Flock, the Mozilla-powered social browser, has recently released a new beta powered by Chromium, the same foundation Google Chrome is built upon. The result of ditching Mozilla in favor of Chromium has allowed Flock to see a huge increase in speed, bringing it on par with its WebKit-powered brethren.

Flock is faster, simpler, and more friendly. Literally. It’s the only sleek, modern web browser with the built-in ability to keep you up-to-date with your Facebook and Twitter friends.

Share web pages, photos, and video. Update your status and make comments—from anywhere on the web!

Unlike previous incarnations of Flock, the new Chromium powered browser offers a minimal design utilizing a simplistic sidebar for the built-in social networking features. Flock uses this sidebar to present an activity stream from your accounts on popular social networking sites, combining Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and RSS feeds all in to one sexy display. The sidebar is entirely user configurable, allowing you to decide what information you want to see.

I have to say I am quite impressed. While I was always intrigued by the features Flock offered, I was never able to commit myself to using the browser. The GUI was chaotic and the implementation was lackluster, even though it sounded like a great idea. The new beta is a 180-degree reversal from the previous versions and may be a worthwhile switch.

Currently the new beta of Flock is only available for Windows although an OS X version is under active development. Although Chrome offers a number of extensions capable of performing many of the same tasks, Flock offers a far more fluid and intuitive design, simplifying the process and making it easier to combine all that data in to a single, usable stream.

If you are a hardcore social networker then Flock may be just the medicine you need!

Although I still truly believe desktop email clients are slowly becoming a dying breed, oddly I have been enamored with Postbox ever since it was released a few short years ago. Postbox offers a unique feature set not seen in any other desktop email clients, making it almost worthwhile. This uniqueness has its price as Postbox retails for US$40.

If you have been interested in playing around with Postbox long-term rather than through the mere 15-day trial period then look no further than Postbox Express.

Postbox Express 1.0 is a simple, yet powerful, new email application for Windows and Mac. It’s based on the same platform as our premium version of Postbox, but contains a lighter-weight feature set that’s perfect for home use.

Best of all… Postbox Express is completely FREE!

The majority of the important Postbox features remain included in Postbox Express but to a smaller degree. Check out the feature comparison for more details on what is and is not included in Postbox Express.

There are quite a few features missing from Postbox Express but the whole point of the product is to whet your appetite just enough so you are willing to spend the mere US$40 on the premium version. I played with Postbox and enjoyed the client but ultimately opted against spending the cash because I did not think I would use it enough to warrant the expenditure.

Personally, I am quite pleased with Mailplane, even though I definitely see exceptional utility in Postbox. The latter offers both a Windows and OS X client whereas Mailplane is only available on OS X, so if you are a Windows user then Postbox may be your email client of choice.

If you are asking yourself why Postbox over Mozilla Thunderbird then check out the page explaining why Postbox definitely blows away Thunderbird!

A few months ago the programmer behind the minimal OS X text editor Smultron opted to stop development of the application. If you, like me, adored Smultron and used it as your text editor of choice this was sure to be worrisome; no updates to the many minor idiosyncrasies and no true Snow Leopard support.

Look no further as Fraise has taken over where Smultron left.

Fraise is a free text editor for Mac OS X Leopard 10.6 which is both easy to use and powerful. It is designed to neither confuse newcomers nor disappoint advanced users. It should work perfectly for a whole variety of needs – like web programming, script editing, making a to do list and so on..

Fraise has all open documents in a list with beautiful Quick Look icons to your left just like e.g. iTunes so you can easily switch between many documents – you can also choose to display them as tabs if you prefer it that way.

It appears Fraise took the source code for Smultron, which was open source, forked it and developed a new product worthy of being considered a replacement. One of the long-standing Smultron bugs – the lack of ability to make the “line wrap text” option sticky – has finally been fixed!

I loved Smultron and have made the transition to Fraise – a beautiful and exceptional successor.