Some uncharacteristically bloated behavior from Google. As Brad Hill points out, "The (potential) problem is, that page's cookies and other gunk gets downloaded to your hard drive even if you don't visit the page." Aside from the needless network activity and wasted storage space, what if the first result contains illegal or illicit content? Firefox users can disable this behavior by typing about:config in the address bar and setting "network.prefetch-next" to "False".

DOSBox is an open source DOS emulator with ports for Windows, BeOS, Linux, and OS X.

Kangoo Jumps are crazy fun and great exercise:

Just bought a pair from Daniel, who provided the best customer service I have ever experienced on the web.

Resize 2.6 [335k] + Batch resize images by percentage, height, width, or maximum dimension while maintaining aspect ratio. From the website: "The resizing algorithm produces high quality images because it uses all available information from the source image. Most other image resizing software only use a small amount of information from the source image."  

Help! My browser is hijacked! is an excellent guide to spyware removal, with a special emphasis on how to use HijackThis safely.

10x10 - 100 words and pictures that express the current news glop. (via David Weinberger)

XBT Client - Tiny BitTorrent client. (via Michel)

MirrorFolder [1044k] $ Mirror selected files to a local, network, or removable disk in real time.  

Arctic - Minimal BitTorrent client for Windows 2000 or higher. (via Robbin Henryson)

UPDATE 1: Laurent kindly informs us that Arctic requires the .NET runtimes.

UPDATE 2: Phil Bean explains that Arctic itself apparently does not requires the .NET runtimes, but its MSI installer does.

MiniApache - Lean version of the open source Apache web server for Windows NT and above. (via digg)

Ed Carlson, "The Waver", has been walking and waving throughout the country for almost thirty years. He has walked over 225,000 miles spreading his message that "All is love."

Three recent app suggestions from the mailbin:

1. menuApp - "Configure menus and use them to launch your favourite programs, music files, documents, websites, etc. Its fast, doesn't hog a lot of resource and is easy to setup and use (so long as you can handle a text editor). What's more, it doesn't drop any extraneous files on your system and it stays well clear of the registry." (via Douglas McFadzean)
2. 2A-ChitChat - "Chat application like e.g. ICQ or AIM and similar programs. The 2A-ChitChat advantage is a completely ciphered data transmission, free configuration of TCP-ports (only one port is used - important for firewalls), tiny footprint (no additional DLL's or runtime) and no public server needed." (via Andreas Aumayr)
3. Omziff - "Straightforward encryption utility that uses various cryptographic algorithms to encrypt and decrypt textual files. These algorithms include: Blowfish, Cast128, Gost, IDEA, Misty1, Rijndael, and Twofish. It also generates random passwords. It is freeware, comes in a standalone executable file." (via Dean)

dBpowerAMP Music Converter (dMC) - Convert virtually any audio file type via the context menu: MP3, MP4, Windows Media Audio (WMA), Real Audio, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, Monkeys Audio, FLAC, SHN, many more. (Before complaining about the MP3 encoder trial period, read this thread) | Reviews

Answers to your most perplexing Microsoft Word questions (including how to fix the 'Page X of Y' printing as 'Page X of X' bug) can be found at the Microsoft Word MVP site.

HI-MD Renderer 0.30 [180k] + Convert OpenMG (OMA / OMG) files to WAV, MP3, FLAC, or OGG. More info on Sony's Hi-MD Recorders, SonicStage, and their proprietary OpenMG file format is available here.  

Hydreux kindly informs us of pdftk, an open source, cross-platform PDF toolkit that can:

• Merge PDF Documents
• Split PDF Pages into a New Document
• Decrypt Input as Necessary (Password Required)
• Encrypt Output as Desired
• Fill PDF Forms with FDF Data and/or Flatten Forms
• Apply a Background Watermark
• Report on PDF Metrics such as Metadata, Bookmarks, and Page Labels
• Update PDF Metadata
• Attach Files to PDF Pages or the PDF Document
• Unpack PDF Attachments
• Burst a PDF Document into Single Pages
• Uncompress and Re-Compress Page Streams
• Repair Corrupted PDF (Where Possible)

Combine PDFs 1.0 [832k] {S} Combine multipage PDFs/graphics, reorder/remove pages, add meta data.  

Screen Thief for DOS v2.01 [37k] + Capture DOS screens as BMP, TIFF, PCX or TXT files.   

CamStudio 2.0 [1331k] {S} Screen recorder able to save captures as AVI or SWF (Flash) files. (Source code available here)    

The Linksys WRT54G wifi router for around $60 has some exciting firmware alternatives, including:

• OpenWRT - Turn the WRT54G into a customized Linux box
• HyperWRT - General enchancements
• Ewrt - HotSpot / Captive portal

Please note that all of these (and any other non-Linksys firmware) will void your warranty. Also, make sure your hardware is supported (most alternative firmware will not support v2.2 at the moment).

UPDATE: Linksys Blue Box Router HOWTO