Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, is the grand-daddy of group chat applications, but it's far from the most inviting and easy-to-grasp apps out there. Mibbit, a free web-based IRC client, aims to change that. Jump right into a chat node if you've got the address or a specific search, or register an account and see what people are talking about. A huge number of tabs can be kept open simultaneously, and registering gives you a Firefox-like ability to launch all your favourite channels upon signing in. If you're looking for tech support, looking for a chance to yak, or just looking to try out IRC, Mibbit is a slick first step.

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Happy weekend, people! Go have some fun this weekend. But first, treat yourself to some of our most popular posts of the week:

• Turn Your iPod Touch into an iPhone
  "Today I'm going to show you how to make VoIP phone calls from your iPod touch or iPhone using a freeware application called SIP-VoIP."
• Five Best DVD Ripping Tools
  "Even those in-the-know find it difficult to keep up with the best tools to rip DVDs, especially in the face of increased copy protection."
• Battle of the Notepad Alternatives
  "If you've done any more than cursory text editing using Windows' built-in Notepad application, you know that Notepad is at best sorely lacking in the features department and at worst downright buggy."
• Top 10 Email Productivity Boosters
  "The first message one could consider email was sent more than 30 years ago, and that's probably when people began associating angst and uncertainty with the words 'Inbox' and 'unread messages.'"
• Free Alternatives to the MacHeist Bundle
  "I'm rounding up no-cost alternatives to the current MacHeist bundle (minus the three games) that will give you most if not all of the functionality of their shareware counterparts for a grand total of $0."
• DIY Two Dollar Laptop Stand
  "Build a lightweight, sturdy laptop stand for a measly two bucks using a couple of twisted wire easels he picked up from the local dollar store and a few common household items."
• Analyse Your Email Usage with Mail Trends
  "When a flurry of new email snows you in within an hour of every inbox sweep, it's time to dig in and get to the source of your email traffic."
• Stitch Photos Into Panoramas with Free Software
  "You can get decent photos out of a standard, consumer-grade digital camera, but a little post-processing can turn them into fantastic wide-angle landscapes."

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DIY web site Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories steps through putting together your very own obscured USB thumb drive, with the end result looking like a sawed-off standard USB cable.The guide is thorough, and the steps are surprisingly simple. For the cost of one slim USB drive and a cable you're willing to destroy, you'll be the envy of all your friends and coworkers. No, this one's not likely to significantly boost your productivity, but sometimes you need a little Friday fun in preparation for the weekend.

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If you're regularly sent TinyURLs but have been burned one too many times by clicking through to an embarrassing link at the wrong time, head to TinyURL's preview page and enable previews. This old but useful feature will set a cookie in your browser, and henceforth all TinyURLs you click on with direct you to a landing page that will display the full link so you can make a more educated decision as to whether or not you should wait to visit the link. For similar solutions that change or preview TinyURL links on-the-fly, check out previously mentioned Embiggen bookmarklet or Tin Foil Hat.

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The 37signals weblog highlights an Automator workflow that downloads the front pages of popular newspapers from previously mentioned web site Newseum and combines them into one consolidated PDF you can print off and read on your daily commute. The script downloads each front page from Newseum, then combines them into one master PDF. As TUAW suggests, you could automate this one step further by setting the workflow to run daily with iCal.

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Web site PassPack secures and manages your passwords (web or otherwise) online. It especially shines on the web, though, because once you give PassPack the password data to your frequented web sites, you can turn on its coolest feature, which is an auto-login bookmarklet for all the sites you've entered into PassPack. The first obvious concern that comes to mind with a service like PassPack is security, and they've gone to lengths to address that issue. Essentially, PassPack encrypts your data before it's even sent to their servers, so not even the PassPack staff will ever read your passwords. PassPack is curretly in beta, free to use, and if you're satisfied with their security precautions, an all-around excellent application.

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Windows only: Free, open source application HotKeyBind creates keyboard shortcuts for common Windows actions, from launching applications and opening files to searching the web and shutting down your computer. HotKeyBind is even useful for Windows actions that already have shortcuts of their own or can be assigned shortcuts, because HotKeyBind provides a universal interface for creating and managing all your custom keyboard shortcuts and existing Windows shortcuts across your system. HotKeyBind is impressively robust on features, including text-replacement (though we still heartily recommend Texter for that), making it a must-have for the keyboard junkie. HotKeyBind is free, Windows only.

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You're at a friends house, extolling the virtues of your latest TV obsession or music kick, and you can't wait to get them into it as well. Usually, this conversation ends with a promise of burned CDs—but why not offer them what you've already grabbed from BitTorrent, or give them a user name and password to get what you're about to start downloading? TorrentFlux, a free, open-source, server-based BitTorrent manager, can do all those things. If you've got a Windows or Linux computer you keep on most of the time, a home server, or even hosted space, you can take control of your downloads. Follow through the jump for a tutorial on getting started with TorrentFlux.

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Being on top of your grammar is a skill that takes years of practice to refine into unthinking craft, but even the most word-minded among us can trip up when it comes how keyboards transpose our thoughts. Blogger Christopher Phin releases his inner copy editor and points out 10 errors one sees everywhere in digital writing, mostly due to not knowing what characters go exactly where. As someone who over-uses the "m-dash" a bit, I was glad to get schooling in the finer points of horizontal lines:

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Your plain vanilla "Outlook Today" screen could be doing a whole lot more for you, especially if you aren't afraid of a little HTML or can get handy with a free page creator. Even if hand-coding's not your thing, the Tech-Recipes blog offers the big blocks of dense code that let you put your inbox, calendar, tasks, and whatever else anywhere you want on a page, leaving room for other stuff you might find useful. Feel free to mess around to your heart's content, because it's also un-doable with less than two clicks.

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