Desktop

Want your friend’s and your Facebook photos to be displayed on your screensaver? Look no further. Mark Johns has developed an insanely slick desktop application that automatically grabs selected friends’ photos and places them directly in your screen saver. The only restriction is that you have a Mac operating system. While many people won’t be able to take advantage of this application, it will surely inspire some PC developers to create a similar application (or at least I hope so). I have to be honest, this looks like one of the slickest applications that I have seen yet. If this is any sign of things to come, we are in for an amazing ride. If you have a Mac and want to have a Facebook screensaver, go grab the Friend Photos Screensaver application.

There is a new desktop application in the works that is going to integrate an instant messenger application with the Facebook platform. This is pretty slick. The application will display all of your friends and allow video chat, video messaging, and more. Airwaves is a combination of Adobe’s AIR (previously Apollo) and the Yahoo! Messenger Vista client. While there has been much discussion throughout the blogosphere already, I couldn’t help but comment on it. This is what I always expected of an instant messaging client. I have always theorized about an instant messaging application that gives you access to all of your friend’s profiles, pictures, videos, and friends directly from the application itself. Having access to all of your contacts and their self-expressive media from one simple application would be a revolution in communications. The upcoming Trillian Astra is a perfect example of such an application. It integrates your MySpace (not Facebook …. boo!) IM account, personal profiles, widget plugins, web chat, and more! While the AirWaves applications looks like a far cry from the Trillian Astra (especially since one developer is working on it), it is a step in the right direction. I will be interested to see how this one turns out.

Want a way to stop having to refresh your browser every few minutes to see what they are up to? Would you prefer to have instant access to all of your Facebook items directly from your desktop? I came across a new Mac desktop widget yesterday called “Facebook Watch.” The widget allows you to view your wall, friend’s recent changes, friend, group, and detail requests, your inbox, and new pokes. I know I love getting updates about new pokes and I’m sure you do to. So if you have a Mac and want an easy desktop widget that keeps you up to date on all your personal Facebook news, go download Facebook Watch.