Windows only: WindowsPager is a free and light-weight application for managing virtual desktops. The application is just over 300k and uses around 5MB of system memory.

Windows Pager requires no installation or administrative rights to run. After running the executable a small bank of four screens—see the screenshot at left— is placed on the Windows taskbar. Clicking on one of the four panes in takes you to one of the four virtual desktops. On a multiple monitor setup, WindowsPager treats all of the monitors as one enormous desktop and cycling through the virtual desktops will fresh all of the multiple monitors accordingly. WindowsPager was quick to respond to changes and bring up the new windows for each virtual desktop. WindowsPager is a free portable-application, Windows only.

• Source: Lifehacker

Windows only: Productivity Meter is a time tracking tool from Fruitful Time, makers of the task manager we reviewed earlier this year.

Once installed the software sits in the background and keeps tabs on your activity. Productivity Meter tracks the active versus idle time, how your active time is split among applications, which applications were used the most, and which websites you browsed and for how long. You can review the stats for the last day, week, month or a user defined block of time. One of the most useful features is the ability to tag programs, windows, and domains. It would be entirely useless to many users—myself included— if the program simply told you when you’d been using a web browser and time spent on certain domains. I use a web browser for nearly all the work I do on my computer. By using the tag function I can tell Productivity Meter which domains I access for certain tasks and jobs. It’s tracking for how much time I spend doing Lifehacker related work became significantly more accurate when I tagged all the domains I use. Another concern was that with a triple monitor setup and a huge number of windows open at any given time it wouldn’t accurately track what I was really focusing my time and attention on. After testing it for the better part of a day it does a fantastic job tracking what I’m actually working on. The program is free for personal use, with the small caveat that after 30 days the ability to generate time cards is removed. If you don’t need to generate time cards to show a boss or client how your time was spent on a give project it shouldn’t matter much. All the graphs and information in the main dashboard is available even after the 30 days window. Productivity Meter is freeware, Windows only.

• Source: Lifehacker

DivFix++ is a cross-platform .AVI repair program that rebuilds the index file within the .AVI container to restore your movie to a functional state.

DivFix++ can be downloaded pre-compiled for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. The interface and operation is straight forward. Tell it where you want the repaired file to be saved, drag and drop some files to be repaired into the Source Files pane of the program and let it loose. Repair time was fairly quick on my mid-level machine and the resource utilization was lower than I expected. The program required no installation, just a simple unzipping, but beyond that I can’t vouch for it’s portability. DivX++ is cross platform and open source.

• Source: Lifehacker

iPhone/iPod touch only: If recession budgeting meant choosing an iPhone/iPod touch over a Kindle when the dust cleared this holiday season, you’re in luck: Stanza is a free and fantastic ebook reader for your iPhone.

The free application comes pre-loaded with several sources for downloading free or public domain books (including the entire Project Gutenberg library), so you can easily download books like The Art of War, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, or Walden in just a few seconds without spending a dime.

However, if you want to get new books, Stanza also comes with a bookstore with which you can purchase popular new titles as well. Prices range from $8 to $15 based on the books I browsed. The reader itself is fully customizable, so if you don’t like the standard black text on white background look, you can just as easily pick something that suits you. Stanza is a free download for the iPhone or iPod touch.

If you can’t imagine reading from your iPhone or iPod touch in public, consider turning your iPhone into a Moleskine book so it still appears to onlookers like you’re reading dead-tree style.

• Source: Lifehacker

Windows only: We’ve already highlighted the best free video conversion tools, but if you want to both edit and convert a video, those apps aren’t up to it. That’s where Free Video Converter comes in.

Free Video Converter lets you choose sections of any video and join or split clips so that once you’re ready to export or convert the video, you get final say on what you see.

Free Video Converter supports most popular file formats, offers simple, one-click settings for converting videos for your iPod, iPhone, HDTV, or YouTube, and it does it all with a friendly, easy-to-use interface.

If all you need is a strong video converter, you’ve already got plenty of excellent options, but if you also need to edit your video, Free Video Converter is a great little tool. Free Video Converter is a free download, Windows only.

• Source: Lifehacker

iPhone 2.0 only: My most-used app on the iPhone, Google Mobile, has a hidden settings panel called “Bells and Whistles” that lets you customize the colors and sounds. To reveal the new pane, go into Google Mobile’s Settings area, scroll to the bottom of the page, and swipe up several times until the “Bells and Whistles” entry appears. Then tap it to set the app’s theme color, sounds (chicken or monkey), and turn on a live waveform for voice search. Neat!

• Source: Lifehacker

iPhone 3G only: The iPhone Dev Team responsible for jailbreaking tools like QuickPwn and PwnageTool release the unappetizingly-titled Yellowsn0w, unlocking software that makes using a different carrier on your iPhone possible. In theory.

Gizmodo reports that the unlock didn’t work on their handset, as well as a significant percentage of other users (though it did for many, too). To try it out, take a deep breath, jailbreak the phone, and install yellowsn0w via the Cydia or Installer app.

Did you give the unlocker a try? How did it go for you? Post up your experience in the comments.

• Source: Lifehacker

iPhone/iPod touch only: Tonight we go on our last major holiday binge. Tomorrow we start to work at shedding the extra holiday heft. Weightbot is here to help.

The Weightbot iPhone and iPod touch application is a simple, attractive application designed to track your weight over time. As a weight-tracking tool, Weightbot stands out for a couple of reasons. To begin with, it’s got a beautiful interface. Tracking your weight isn’t a particularly fun activity, but Weightbot makes it seem pretty cool.

The application includes gorgeous graphs displaying your progress by week, month, and year, your information is backed up online over a secure connection, and you can set a goal weight so you can watch your weight slope toward the finish line.

If you want to prevent prying eyes from spying your weight, you can also set a passcode on the app.

The biggest catch: It’s not free. It is, however, available for $1 from the iTunes App Store for a limited time, and while you can probably find countless other free options, Weightbot is one of those apps you may be more likely to use because of its great interface and feature set. If you give it a try, let’s hear what you think of it in the comments. If you’ve got an alternate favorite tool for the job, let’s hear about that, too.

• Source: Lifehacker

Windows only: MoboPhoto is a portable photo suite. The stand alone 1.6MB executable has a basic photo editor, gallery builder, and a batch tool for mass resizing and renaming.

The basic editor is fairly limited in comparison to standard desktop editing suites, but that can be expected in such a tiny portable application. It is sufficient for basic fixes like red eye editing but you won’t be doing any fancy touch up work beyond the basics. The gallery builder allows you to generate basic HTML image galleries with thumbnails, again nothing extremely fancy but perfectly serviceable. If you need a more robust and portable image editor, check out GIMP Portable. MoboPhoto is freeware, Windows only.

• Link: MoboPhoto
• Via: The Portable Freeware Collection
• Source: Lifehacker

Firefox with Greasemonkey: The Gmail Unread Message Count in Favicon Greasemonkey user script displays your unread message count on the Gmail site favicon.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of the favicon, it’s the small icon that appears next to the address bar or in the tab and helps identify which sites are open in which tab (like the little ‘lh’ that Lifehacker uses as its favicon). With this script installed, the favicon gets even more useful by showing your unread count in addition to identifying which tab holds your Gmail account. The unread number glows brighter with each new message you receive, and it maxes out at 10. The improved favicon is a perfect compliment to the previously mentioned FaviconizeTab extension, which strips all the text from tabs so all you’re left with is the favicon, but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see this incorporated in Better Gmail sometime in the future (it’s very similar to the already included Show Inbox Count First script).

It’s a simple little script, but it’s a brilliant tweak. Gmail Unread Message Count in Favicon is a free download, requires Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension.

• Source: Lifehacker