If you spend any amount of time on the Internet then I would probably bet you have be subjected to some form of talk about social networks.  Heck, even here on WinCustomize and JoeUser I regularly talk about the usefulness of such networks.  We have a growing group on Facebook about desktop customization, and several of us use Twitter as well.

With all these current networks, and more popping up all the time, it can be difficult to keep track of them all.  I use quite a few of these networks for both personal and work use, and I wanted to share a few tips on how I manage some of the more popular ones.

• FriendFeed is one of the hottest new sites around, and it’s generating quite a buzz.  FriendFeed lets you keep update to date with the happening of all your subscribed friends, favorite bloggers, etc.  It will pull updates from services like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, and a bunch more.  It also allows users to comment on your postings, and see updates posted from your friends as well.   You can see my feed here.
  
• Socialthing! is another website that does a similar function, but I think it has a much cleaner interface.  Socialting! is still an invite only service, and I do have a couple of invites to give away if anyone is interested.
  
• TweetScan is for you Twitter users out there.  It lets you search Twitter, and is a good way to find people with similar interests, or people that are just talking about you.
  
• Twhirl is an application powered by Adobe AIR.  It’s a Twitter client for your desktop, but the cool thing about this is it will also post to your Pownce and Jaiku accounts as well.  It’s also available for both PC and Mac, but my personal Twitter client of choice is Witty.
  
• Alert Thingy is another new application also powered by Adobe AIR.  Instead of Twitter, this app focuses on keeping you updated of your FriendFeed feeds, and it also allows you to post messages to Twitter.

So those are a few of my top choices on how to make managing your social networks a little bit easier.  If you have any tips or tricks, I would definitely like to hear how you manage yours.

The latest application bundle from MacUpdate is now up. They have 10 apps, some of which are locked, for $65. Total price of all the applications would normally be $475.

Some of the apps included are:

• Parallels (unlocked when a certain amount of bundles are sold)
  
• BannerZest
  
• Art Text
  
• Hazel
  
• Typinator
  
• MenuCalendarClock
  
• and more

The promo starts today and will run for two weeks ending on April 29th.

Link: MacUpdate Promo

I have talked about Jing before, and it’s one of my favorite free apps for capturing screenshots and video of your desktop.  TechSmith released an updated version for Windows users yesterday.

Updates include:

• Capture selection should start more quickly
• History should be open more quickly
• Memory ‘leaks’ cleaned up
• Over all memory usage decreased
• Automatic selection of ’sub windows’ restored

Download: Jing 1.5

This Cosmos .dream was made to go with the Cosmos MyColors suite, but it’s a fine .dream all by itself.  It’s very subtle, so this is perfect for people who don’t like a lot of movement on the desktop.  For Vista Ultimate users with DeskScapes, or all Vista users with the full beta from Object Desktop.

Link: Download