While YouTube may be a great place to answer your toddler's requests to see video of a baby panda, there is also tons of content more risqué than adorable baby animals. Video site Totlol offers the good stuff from YouTube to your kids without the rest. Designed by a British software developer and father of two, Totlol is a child-friendly frontend to YouTube, with clips fit for kids from the age of six months old to six years old. Videos range from the comically absurd such as Elmo and Grover singing the Numa Numa song, to the more serious, such as a reading of The Giving Tree by children's author Shel Silverstein.

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The Wired How-To Wiki looks through the loupe at black and white photography, offering up tips for consumer-grade camera owners on how to take shots that look great converted to black and white. When other pictures look dull and dreary, for instance, black and white shots can pop, with the right focus:

Most photographers will tell you that gloomy, overcast days are perfect for shooting in black and white. So the next time the fog rolls in or the clouds hang a little too low, take it as your cue to get creative with the shades of gray.

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Windows only: Freeware PDF Unlocker, a free Windows utility, doesn't do everything that commerical packages like those from Elcomsoft do, but it will help if you just need to unlock copy/paste and editing restrictions on a PDF. Simply drag a copy-protected PDF onto PDF Unlocker's icon, and a new, non-protected copy will be created. You can also strip PDF files of passwords needed to open and read them, but you, uh, need the password to do so. For simple restrictions, however, it does the job. Freeware PDF Unlocker is a free download for Windows systems.

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Linux only: Wine 1.0, the first stable release of the Windows API recreation tool, is available for most major Linux distributions. Wine has been focused solely on bug fixes for some time now, but as of their 1.0 release, there are hundreds of Windows apps, games, and utilities that run as "Platinum" (or flawless) in the Wine environment, many more considered "Gold" (only a few non-show-stopping problems), and myriad others in various states of improvement. Check to see how your must-keep-Windows-installed app runs at the Wine application database, then grab a package for your distro. Wine is a free download for Linux systems only.

Windows only: Free application Pocket Killbox deletes files Windows Explorer won't because they're in use or locked. If you tried our previous tips on deleting locked files and were still unable to delete the file, Pocket Killbox might be the proper hammer for the problem at hand. By killing the process using the file and deleting on reboot, Pocket Killbox can circumvent Windows and put your file to rest. Pocket Killbox is a free download for Windows only.

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The ongoing rumours that Telstra doesn't want Optus and Vodafone to get all the iPhone customers have ratcheted up another notch, with a report on Australian IT saying that Telstra will indeed start selling the phone, albeit not until July 22. (The Australian's Michael Sainsbury is impeccably well-connected when it comes to Telstra, so I'm quite inclined to believe this despite the lack of named sources). What does this mean for prospective iPhone buyers?
As ever, it heavily depends on the plans on offer, which no carrier has yet disclosed. Telstra doesn't have a reputation for cheap prices, especially on its Next G network. On the other hand, its coverage in rural areas remains the strongest (despite criticisms in some areas about dropouts). Telstra's certainly infinitely better equipped in respect to regional users than the other rumoured late entrant 3. And like Optus, it can potentially bundle the iPhone with lots of other services (home phones, ISPs, cable networks, mobiles). Once again, it seems sitting back and waiting is clearly going to get you a better deal than racing out on July 11.
Telstra to sell 3G iPhone [Australian IT]

Multi-IM-client mobile phone app Palringo, previously available for Windows Mobile and Symbian, has now added the BlackBerry to its list of targets. The release works on Pearl, Curve and 8800 series models, and supports eight IM services, including Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, allowing you to combine contacts in one single interface. Palringo is freeware.
Palringo

Most of the initial hype around the new 4.0 beta version of Skype centres around the improved video quality and the amount of space the revised client takes up on screen. However, the most interesting new feature in the long term may be the fact that multiple conversations -- video, voice or text -- can all be managed from the central screen. Alternating between numerous discussions is a major nuisance in earlier releases, so this might be some compensation for the crowding that'll be inevitable on ultra-portables like the Eee with the new triple-width client. Skype 4.0 is currently a Windows-only beta, but Skype hopes to get the gold version out the door later in the year and follow with Mac and Linux versions. (Personally, I'm too scarred by the bugs in 3.8 to test 4.0 just yet, but I'd love to hear any reader experiences in the comments.)

Online retailer EzyDVD has announced that it will be rolling out a movie downloads service, EzyDownload, in September this year. Not much word on the details yet, other than it's based on the now-defunct Reeltime service and that the company actively wants to partner with ISPs to not have movies included in download caps -- an essential feature given that the main competition is Telstra's BigPond movies service, which offers a similar deal to users over BigPond. So far, the site's a non-event, but one to keep an eye on. UPDATE: You can now register for further updates on the site.

Although Web 2.0 apps are pretty much global by definition, developers still have to live somewhere -- and some sites (like Lifehacker AU, ahem) do work better with a local flavour. Futurist Ross Dawson has compiled a list of the Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications. Top of the charts is mobile community Mig33, followed by enterprise wiki Confluence and art sharing site Red Bubble. Any obvious examples missing? Choices you'd have made differently? Check out the full list then let us know in the comments.
Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications list

Mac OS X only: Put any web site in your menu bar with the latest version of previously mentioned Fluid, a Mac application that turns any webapp into a standalone desktop application. The video demonstration above shows how to create a MenuExtra with a web-based Twitter client called Hahlo, but as the We Do Blog points out, it works perfectly for mobile versions of sites like Google Reader. Fluid is freeware, Mac OS X only.

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Mac OS X only: Firefox extension Quartz PDF enables inline viewing of PDFs in Firefox 3 for the Mac. Just install, and next time you follow a link to a PDF, it quickly loads the PDF directly inline. Quartz PDF is lightning fast, and works exactly like you're viewing the PDF in Preview. It'd be great to see the thumbnail navigation sidebar in a future release, but as is this extension works like a charm. Quartz PDF is free, requires Firefox 3 and OS X 10.4 or higher.

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In a 24-hour period, you and your peers downloaded Firefox 3 more than 8 million times, which—though as yet unverified by Guinness—should be more than enough to secure the download record in the new category. Pat yourself on the back and grab your personalised Download Day certificate.

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Windows/Linux: The Facebook Chat for Pidgin plug-in connects the popular open-source chat application Pidgin with the new Facebook Chat instant messaging service. Facebook integration is one of the marquee features of Digsby, an up-and-coming IM app with an emphasis on social networking sites, but if you're a part of the majority who still prefers Pidgin, this plug-in will bring you the Facebook integration you want and you won't need to change horses to get it. The Facebook Chat plug-in is free, works wherever Pidgin does. Want to beef up Pidgin even more? Check out the ten must-have Pidgin plug-ins. Thanks Larry, Donal, and Jacob!

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Another simple yet inspiring under-the-radar Firefox 3 feature hit our inbox today: a more useful and attractive interface for browsing FTP sites. The FTP update tweaks the layout significantly, but what's most useful is that you can now sort items in an FTP directory by name, size, or modified date. (Here, check out the Mozilla FTP site to give it a try; click on the column names to sort them.) No, it's not a top 10 Firefox 3 feature, but like multi-line text selection, little tweaks like this make all the difference. Thanks Scott!

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Windows/Mac/Linux: Firefox extension Xoopit turns Gmail into a robust, searchable media management tool for every piece of media that comes through your inbox. By indexing every attachment as well as every link to photos and videos from sites like Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube, Xoopit allows you to easily search for and find any picture or video and view it from directly inside Gmail. Imagine this: You're looking for a YouTube video that you were sent a link to recently, but you really don't know where to begin your search. With Xoopit installed, you can just click the Videos tab and you'll see this:

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Adobe AIR, a downloadable platform for running web-friendly apps on any operating system, is still pretty fresh on the market, but it already has a healthy number of applications in development or near completion. While many of them are simply desktop translations of web interfaces that were easy to use already, a handful of AIR apps truly make work and play easier, or just more interesting. Let's take a look at 10 applications that make it worth the effort of downloading and installing Adobe AIR.

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Windows/Mac OS X only: Freeware application DiskAid enables iPhone and iPod touch owners to use their devices as an external hard drive. Install DiskAid, plug in your iPod touch or iPhone, and watch as it detects your device and lets you to copy files and portable applications to and from it. You won't be able to upload images or songs to the device and be able to listen to them or view them on-device, but with DiskAid, you can transfer files like documents and portable apps from your Mac to your iPhone and then to your PC. (Here's how to transfer songs from any iPod to your computer.) DiskAid does not require you to jailbreak your device and works from the get-go. DiskAid is a freeware download for Windows and Mac OS X. Thanks, Jay!

The Ultimate Geek Girl blogger enthusiastically updated to Firefox 3 yesterday, but found that her passwords just didn't copy into her new profile for some reason. The solution? Head to your Firefox profile folder (usually located in %APPDATA%/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/ in Windows, for example), copying all the data in the signons2 file, opening up the signons3 file, pasting the data into signons3 and saving. Those who haven't upgraded yet could also try a solution like Password Exporter, or take Mozilla's own advice on transferring data to a new profile.

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Web-based photo editor Dumpr adds quick effects to photos like the Lifehacker Rubik's Cube included here, created in under 10 seconds. Upload photos to Dumpr from your computer, or grab them from Flickr or any photo URL. The real timesaver Dumpr provides is the quick link panel beside each picture it renders, which lets you quickly inject your edited photos into Facebook, Blogger, Wordpress, and more. If you're looking for a more robust online editor to crop, resize, and apply filters, check out previously posted Wiredness.

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Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): To-read manager Read It Later, a free Firefox extension we've previously covered, has updated for Firefox 3 in a big way. The add-on places a little red checkmark in the address bar for quick adding to a locally-saved list of reading links, but carries over the bookmarking star for easier sorting. The bigger news might be a one-click "Read Offline" tool that downloads local versions of your reading list URLs for non-connected reading. There's lots more updates and features, so hit the link below to install and see what's new. Read It Later is a free download, works wherever Firefox does. Thanks, How-To Geek!

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