You’ve probably seen them before, those images online which have a rippling water effect. Ever wondered how this was done or wanted to add this effect to your own pictures? Now is your chance.

Sqirlz Water Reflections is a program that can do this, it can also optionally add rain or snow effects. It works both on images and AVI videos. The rippling effect can be adjusted until you find the right effect that looks the most realistic for your image, you can fully control details such as wave size, perspective, flow, texture, color and transparency. You can save your finished masterpiece in a variety of formats including Flash (useful for easily adding to webpages!)

This effect can actually look really good if you use your imagination, check out the homepage for some examples and to download it, its freeware too!

Unlike other screen savers that are usually somewhat predictable, SurveillanceSaver is a screen saver with a difference. It shows live CCTV images from over 600 networked surveillance cameras worldwide. Now whenever your screen saver kicks in, you’ll be shown live images from random CCTV cameras that are connected to the internet.

This makes for a very unpredictable and potentially entertaining screen saver, as you’re never quite sure what you may see. It could be someones backyard, a street, or a storefront. The possibilities are almost endless due to the huge amount of cameras it randomly selects from.

This software is free under the creative Commons license and can be downloaded here.

Sooner or later a time comes when most of us need to convert a file between formats for one reason or another, usually because your particular program doesn’t support a particular format. Rather than hunting around for a file conversion program, there now exists quite a few sites for online file conversion and Youconvertit is certainly one of the better ones.

You have the option to choose between a very large variety of file formats. These include audio, document, image, video and archive file types. What’s cool about this particular service apart from the large range of file formats supported, is that you can add up to five files at a time for conversion. You can even add a url that links to a file online which you’d like to convert. It also provides an option for sending files to a recipients email address (again, up to five at a time).

As a slightly unrelated bonus but in keeping with the theme of conversion, they also offer unit conversion (distance,weight, etc)

It’s a site worth bookmarking, whether you find yourself needing to convert between file types regularly or just once in a while!

Check it out here.

Morpheus Photo Morpher lets you change the image of a person or thing into another by slowly transitioning or “morphing” the images, giving the appearance of something slowly transforming into something else.

How it works is, you load your chosen pictures into the program. Now you can add markers to key points in the images, these key points are areas that have similarities such as eyes and facial shape. The more key points you add, the more accurate and smooth your finished morph animation will be. You can then preview the end results and render it in the file format of your choice such as FLV (Flash), AVI video, Animated GIF file, and more.

Morphing is a pretty neat effect when done with the right images and technique, its also a cool way to liven up boring slide shows!

Check out the homepage for some good examples and to download the trial.

When running a computer that is used by many people. such as at an internet cafe or library, it’s essential that certain system areas and settings are off-limits. This is in the interest of security as well as basically making sure things don’t get messed up!

Bulletproof Public PC does a good job of managing this issue. It can completely disable all access to any local files or settings, while allowing access to only the necessary specified programs such as a web browser. You can choose which sites to allow or disallow from being browse-able and can disable and lock down certain settings and even disable certain keys.

The amount of control it offers over the system is very detailed and can be customized for your needs. This is one program worth checking out if you run a publicly accessible computer.

Check it out at the homepage here

This is a neat little program I found for preventing your laptop from being stolen. It’s called LaptopAlarm and that’s exactly what it is. The best way of describing it is, it’s like a car alarm for your laptop!

If you need to walk away from your laptop in an area where it there is a potential chance of it being stolen or tampered with, this is the program for you, as long as loud noise isn’t a problem, as the alarm sound on this is very noticeable! (Be careful not to try this out with headphones!)

You get the options to set it to sound if the AC power is unplugged, the computer is shutdown or logged off, the USB Mouse is unplugged, and/or even if the mouse is moved. To shut off the alarm enter your password that you entered in settings.

LaptopAlarm doesn’t even need installing as it comes as a small exe file and it’s free!

Check it out here

PicLens is an add-on for Firefox which improves your online image viewing experience in a really cool way. Once you install it, It can be invoked with one click whenever you visit several of the well-known image sites online including Flickr, Photobucket, Myspace, FaceBook, Fotki, Picasa web albums, Google image search,AOL image search and some others!

You’ll notice that images at these sites now have a small arrow in the bottom left corner. Once you click this, PicLens launches and shows a gallery of all those pictures. This is no ordinary gallery though, its a 3D “wall” of images on a dark background. It looks pretty cool and it just gets cooler, because you can drag your mouse to move along this virtual “wall”. You can even use your scroll wheel to zoom in and out.

Clicking on an image expands it to full screen. There’s also a thumbnails strip at the bottom once in full screen mode. It also adds a small link at the top of your Firefox browser as an alternative way to start it, also you can search these image sites directly from inside PicLens. This enables you to view endless walls of pictures forever if you chose to without ever leaving it!

This is a must have for anyone who views a lot of pictures online, just try it and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Also, if you happen to connect your computer to a large screen TV or monitor, then this program is a must (and I envy you!)

It was very fast on my computer when i tried (and kept) it and doesn’t seem to slow anything down at all. It only needs to be used whenever you feel like it and only takes one click to get in or out of it fast. It’s superbly designed and extremely user friendly.

Download it and see images and more info at the homepage here.

Wetpaint is a website that allows you to make your own community-driven wiki. The best thing about it is the ease of use, as it’s pretty much fool proof and not complicated. Some wiki sites can have a steep learning curve and confuse a lot of non-tech savvy people, but wetpaint is very user friendly from the start all the way through, as theres no wiki code to learn.

It’s worth checking out if you’ve been thinking about having a wiki type site or community and dont want to worry about hosting it yourself, while also wanting to make sure its very user friendly. You simply click “easyedit” to edit pages and can even add embedded videos from sites such as YouTube.

You can watch some lighthearted videos here which explain why WetPaint is different from other wiki sites.

Check out more details and see it in action at the homepage here or try out the “sandbox” here to see what its like to actually use it.

Normally when you want to make a quick note for future reference, it requires some effort. You have to grab a pen and paper, or maybe your PDA if you’re more technologically inclined.

With Jott, all you have to do is grab your cellphone and dial a special toll free number (which you can easily put on speed dial!) You then say who your message is for, such as “myself”, ” family”, or a work group or friends name for example. Now you can dictate up to 30 seconds of a message. This is then transcribed and emailed or texted to yourself as a reminder or to the chosen group.

At the moment its currently only available in the US and Canada, but is certainly an exciting idea which sounds like it could be very useful.

Sound interesting to you? Check out the website and test it out for yourself!

Fix8 is a free program for using with your webcam. It allows you to add in “special effects”. These consist of animated objects such as hats, etc, but can also consist of avatars. These follow your heads position so for example you can wear a virtual hat. The avatars face is controlled by your own facial movements. For example, if you wink, it winks, if your mouth moves, it’s mouth moves, etc.

This can lead to hours of enjoyment or just a few minutes, depending on how easily amused or creative you are I guess!

There’s a wide selection to choose from that come with the basic version, which is completely free, with the choice to upgrade if you feel like spending a little money at a later time. You can also record videos for you and your friend’s later amusement.

Sound interesting to you? All you need is your computer and webcam and to go here to see a video example and download it..