In this age of Facebook and MySpace, Twitter and Flickr, we’re often prompted by web services and sites to upload images with specific dimensions. You can edit photos with a bulky image editor like Photoshop or iPhoto, but ResizeMe can do the job before these programs have had a chance to launch.

The Web gives you all kinds of content at your fingertips. But that can be a problem if you’re in an environment where you need to monitor or restrict Internet access—if you're in a home with kids, for instance, or a business where you want to cut down on non-work-related browsing. With ContentBarrier X4, you can set up user restrictions for Internet access, block Web sites, limit instant messaging, and maintain activity logs to get an idea of what people are doing.

GarageBuy basically, takes data from eBay and lets you access it using a bespoke, desktop client. This is an odd concept. After all, eBay is one of the world’s most successful websites – robust, reliable and usability tested to the point of destruction. It’s also an interesting time for web applications, with more and more productivity tools appearing in online incarnations.

Delicious Library is a database for recording the data about books, CDs and other items you own on your computer. The categories and items are quaintly represented as wooden shelves, with your stuff displayed virtually on them.

Pangea Software is a veteran of the Mac game industry, so it’s understandable that the company would repurpose some of its most popular games for the iPhone and iPod touch. One of those is Enigmo, an intriguing physics-based puzzle game that’s made a nice transition to the new platform – nice enough, in fact, to net an Apple Design Award at this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference.

It’s no surprise that Apple’s Remote application headed up the App Store’s list of Top Free Apps immediately after the store launched. After installing Remote on an iPhone or iPod touch, the portable’s touchscreen becomes the best remote control we’ve yet seen for controlling an Apple TV – or iTunes running on a computer – located on the same local network. (Your iPhone or iPod touch must be connected to that network via WiFi.)

The TuneStudio is a four-track mixing console. It works not only as a USB audio interface, but also as a CD-quality (16-bit 44.1KHz) recorder that lets you record audio to an iPod via a built-in dock. It works with the 5G iPod, 2G or 3G iPod nano, and iPod classic.

Anyone who runs a small business will know that just keeping the business going is hard enough without also having to manage all the paperwork, keep track of orders, and follow up invoices. Streamtime is a business-management program that aims to keep on top of just these sorts of things.

In MotionX Poker, you play against the house (a computer-controlled opponent) as you try to "roll" the best poker hand you can using five specially painted dice. The six-sided dice each have a nine, ten, jack, queen, king and ace engraved on them, and you have three shakes of the dice to figure out your hand. You can hold any or all of the dice in between each roll—so if you come up with three aces on your first roll, you can hold them and then try to get five of a kind with your last two throws.

There’s no doubt that the markets for external storage devices – like the capacities of the drives themselves – are expanding. It’s almost debatable whether consumer demand is driving technological development or vice versa, but each month seems to bring a new crop of devices in varying configurations, and with equally various selling points. The Buffalo DriveStation Combo 4 is a case in point.

Lexmark’s X560n combines a scanner, copier, fax machine, and colour laser printer in one big, boxy multifunction device – it weights almost 41kg and stands 3ft tall – designed for medium-sized workgroups.

You’ve probably heard about Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion – programs that allow you to run Windows on Intel Macs by creating a ‘virtual machine’ that runs alongside the main Mac OS.

Like Zenbe Lists, Todo syncs your tasks with an online service; in Todo’s case, you can choose either Toodledo or Remember The Milk. (Remember The Milk focuses on to-do lists; Toodledo offers many additional features, including Jott integration.) Once you’ve set up an account with one of these Web sites, tapping the Sync button in Todo syncs any tasks you’ve entered in Todo on the iPhone with your lists on the site. Similarly, changes made on the Web site are reflected on your iPhone or iPod touch. (Note that Remember The Milk’s Smart Lists are not synced with Todo.)

Before the iPhone came along, Research In Motion (RIM) had the final say on smartphones with its legendary BlackBerry range of mobiles.

There is a wealth of iPhone apps aiming to help you organise your life. Ever since the App Store arrived we’ve been wading through list managers, personal organisers and productivity applications.

Extensis has, over the years, made something of a specialism of asset-management software, both for single users and workgroups. The acquisition of Font Reserve from DiamondSoft in 2003 introduced a degree of duplication and, arguably, confusion into the Extensis product range. It was not surprising, then, that aspects of the single-user version of Font Reserve were incorporated into Suitcase Fusion for Mac and Windows, released in 2006. Two years on, Extensis has consolidated its client-server font management tools into a single product, Universal Type Server.

Canon’s plastic PowerShot range may not be as fashionably styled as its metal-build IXUS family, but these cameras are generally better value for money while offering a fairly comprehensive feature set.

Available in black/gray, black/orange, or black/blue, the Expandable Trek measures approximately 19 inches high by 15.5 inches wide by either 9 or 11 inches deep (more on this in a bit) — it’s definitely a large pack. The bag is constructed of thick ballistic nylon, and the laptop sleeve, located against your back in the largest part of the bag, has thin padding on the sides and two very thick layers of padding on the bottom. (The bag doesn't use Brenthaven's CORE system.) Overall, like other Brenthaven bags I’ve tested in the past, the Expandable Trek feels exceptionally sturdy and well-made, and it includes a lifetime guarantee. But despite this size and construction, the bag weighs just over 3 pounds empty, which is less than several other large backpacks I’ve tested that offer less protection.

Keeping your iPhone (or iPod) full of power is a straight-forward enough task, and you have to wonder how easy it is for chargers to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Arriving on the scene at the same time as the App Store, the free program is a unified tool that searches your address book, Web sites, contacts, and businesses near your current location simultaneously.