PDF Online

In September I reviwed Cute PDF Writer, a neat little program that lets you convert any document into a PDF file. This is a handy program to have, but not everyone wants to insall a program to convert a document. And you might want to convert something to PDF while using another computer. In those situations, PDF Online can do most of your conversion for you.

DAEMON Tools

This week’s featured item is DAEMON Tools, and it’s a little different than most products or services that appear on Best of the Web. DAEMON Tools is probably not for basic or novice computer users — although it is easy enough to use. Most people don’t need a product like DAEMON Tools. But for more experienced or technical computer users, this is a very handy program.

DAEMON Tools fools your computer into thinking that you have additional CD or DVD-ROM drives on your computer and lets you “mount” CD images to mimic putting a CD into the drive. Why is this handy? Because it allows you to use programs or play games without the CD.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu calls itself “Linux for human beings.” Linux-based operating systems have existed since the very early 1990’s, but not many people use Linux because it was too technically demanding. Linux has come a long way since then, and the folks behind Ubuntu have done their best to live up to their mantra. Ubuntu is easy to try, easy to install, and easy to use. And like all other products from the open-source community, and everything else I profile in this column, Ubuntu is absolutely free.

Meebo

I have used Meebo for a little over the year, and I love the service. In fact, I don’t know how I wrote a review every week without mentioning it. But Meebo just came out of testing, and it’s a great time to discover why Meebo really is worthy of the Best of the Web.