The Chrome team has released a developers copy of the browser for Mac and Linux, so far Google Chrome has just been available for Windows.

While to call me a developer would be a gross misuse of the term, I’ve been using the browser ever since it was released last week.  It is so cool.  Well actually so fast!

The team admits it’s far from finished.  Among other things, it doesn’t print, it doesn’t display YouTube-like videos and there seems to be not much in the way of bookmark management.  So let’s give it a number and say it’s 75% done. What it does well is render a web page really fast and when I’m digging around the web that’s what’s most important to me.

The Chronium Blog warns you not to download this version unless “take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.

How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won’t yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.”

It hasn’t crashed for me in about 20 hours of use.  The only gotcha for me was when checking a blog post and panicking when I couldn’t see the YouTube video, but I had been warned.

Anway, if you live life on the bleeding edge and are so Type A that anything faster is better, download the browser and give it a try on Mac or Linux.

As for me?  I’ll probably use it for most of my work on my slight aging Macbook because it just makes the experience so darn fast!

We probably don’t provide enough help for those brave souls that have decided to use Linux as their desktop – these pioneers don’t use the Mac and certainly not Windows.

Unfortunately for these trend setters they’re also often forgotten by publishers of consumer-oriented software.  Today we’re glad to report that the Google team has made the new Picasa 3 available to Linux users. 

Our previous story on Picasa 3 beta.

The update provides much of what is available to the Windows crowd but does not include the rather cool slideshow movie format. 

Limitations in the Linux version come mostly from the rather quirky Wine technology that Picasa used to port Picasa to Linux.

Download Picasa for Linux [via webmonkey]

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Adobe PDF files have become a nearly-universal means of distributing documents that are not meant to have their contents modified and need to look the same on every computer platform.

When I’m working, I find I spend enormous amounts of time reading PDF files.   That’s the way I download many product and shared documents.  Some very long.  Waiting for Acrobat Reader to open can often be frustrating and time consuming. 

Foxit Reader is a free light-weight very fast PDF reader that will keep you reading rather than waiting for documents to open.

In addition to being a very small and fast program, Foxit Reader will allow you to set bookmarks within the PDF file and add annotations and notes as you read.

Foxit Reader has an intuitive interface that features tabbed pages for multiple open PDFs, much like a tabbed-browser.  It can also play video and music embedded in PDF files.

Foxit Reader is available for Windows, Linux and some mobile devices.

While Foxit Reader is free, there are “advanced” add-ons that add value to Foxit Reader available for purchase.

Download Foxit Reader [Via WebWorkerDaily]

WavePad is a free sound editor that will also allow you to rip CDs and create MP3s. The tool has many features but can also be easily used by the casual user for light chores like creating a ring tone from a full song MP3 file, editing songs to use as background for a business presentation or a home video. WavePad is also a great way to record and edit voice — you can use it to narrate voice overs or send recordings via email.

WavePad is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. You can purchase the WavePad Master’s Edition if you need more capabilities, but you’re going find free edition more than powerful enough for most users.

WavePad [via lifehacker]