If you're a longtime internet user you probably remember IRC and other chat systems that were around before instant messaging. If that's the case you're probably also familiar with bots or "chatterbots." Back in the day these things were used for automating chat room functions like creating moderators and "ops."

While most people may not be familiar with bots they still do exist in a number of different ways. The most familiar bot most AIM users know today usually pretends to be one of your friends. I see these a lot - most of my friends have no idea how to create a hypertext link so I'm instantly suspicious when they send me a message with one in it!

There are several helpful bots that exist today though - one of them is SmarterChild by Colloquis, Inc. Just add SmarterChild to your buddy list and drop it an IM.

When you first IM SmarterChild it'll ask you a few questions (not in the creepy a/s/l way) and then you're ready to go. Type something like "define Synonym" and it will give you a definition. "Synonym Define" and you'll get see a thesaurus. You can even type "Square root of 100" and it'll provide you with an answer!

Besides a dictionary, thesaurus, and calculator you can also use SmarterChild to poll your friends and even send you reminders. That's right, type "Remind me about Heroes at 8:45 PM" and you'll get a text message reminding you to watch TV!

The best news about all of this is that SmarterChild is owned by Microsoft so you can be sure it's trustworthy for sending basic messages.

When I first downloaded Google Browser Sync a few months back I really wasn't very impressed. While it was certainly helpful there were some bugs in it that really bogged it down.

Last week, while rebuilding my Portable Apps Suite installation I thought I'd give it another go. Right now I work across three computers where I am free to install my own stuff and a couple where I'm fairly restricted. Despite being unable to install Firefox I can certainly run it off a USB or SD card - the issue was just keeping my bookmarks up-to-date. After re-installing Google Browser Sync on my three primary PCs and setting it up on my USB Firefox install I'm happy to say everything is working great!

Anytime I boot Firefox on any of my machines (or from my USB drive) all the bookmarks I've collected on ANY of those computers are available to me. If I add a bookmark while at work - it's on my home PC as soon as I start Firefox.

Besides being able to sync my bookmarks and personal data I also learned that Google Browser Sync will sync notes taken in Google Notebook. Trust me, it's a great feature.

Setting up Browser Sync does require having a Google Account - but who doesn't these days?

Visual Task Tips is a shell extension for Windows XP that works a lot like the Alt-Tab Replacement powertoy. The difference basically rests in the Windows taskbar.

While Alt-Tab Replacement only works while your "Alt-Tabbing" through your current processes, Visual Task Tips pops up when you mouse over any item in your taskbar. Both programs show you thumbnails of the program that's running which is nice. This is fantastic if you’re used to keeping several programs running at once (especially if its multiple browsers, spreadsheets, images or documents.)

This post was originally a Technoobogy post of mine on another site. I've since closed down that blog and wanted to share some of it's highlights here.

For those not yet switching to Windows Vista I thought I'd share a program I found awhile back called Alt-Tab Replacement from, of all places, Microsoft. Awhile back Microsoft started posting "powertoys" which could be used in Windows XP (and in some cases previous Windows versions) and that are free to download.

What's nice about a lot of these programs is that they have a mostly offer features that you really wish were included in Windows. Alt-Tab Replacement is a perfect example of this.

When you press Alt+Tab in a Windows environment it gives you the chance to quickly swap between running programs with just the keyboard. If you’re a multi-tasker (like me) then you might have several things running at the same time. In standard Windows XP you only get to see a small icon for that program - with Alt-Tab Replacement you get to see a thumbnail of the program’s current state.

As you can see, the right portion of the window offers up the standard small icons while the left portion gives you a look at what's currently going on in the selected program.

This post was originally a Technoobogy post of mine on another site. I've since closed down that blog and wanted to share some of it's highlights here.

One of the hardest parts about getting into 'Getting Things Done' is breaking the bad habits and vices which keep you unproductive. For some reason we find it much easier to adopt bad habits as opposed to developing good practices. This morning I was wondering why it was that quitting my morning Dunkin Donuts trip was so hard - especially when less than a year ago I didn't drink coffee.

Between last year and this year nothing really had changed. There's always been two donut shops between home and work but until last summer I had never even considered stopping at them. For some reason during the summer I got myself hooked on Ice Coffee (I still don't drink hot coffee) and have been grabbing one every morning since.

I'm not going to bash coffee (for fear of the Arabica gods striking me down) but I am curious why it was so easy for me to start drinking something I had previously never craved. As I continue to fight my $1,092 a year coffee habit (3 bucks a morning * 7 days a week * 52 weeks = $1092 dollars) it maked me wonder: why is it so hard to develop good habits but so bad to develop bad ones?