Why anyone even bothers running a single service IM application anymore, we just can’t figure out. And now Meebo is giving us cause to wonder whetherinstalled clients are even worth the trouble these days.

With its clean Ajax-powered interface, Meebo gives you slick, intuitive access to all the major IM services, including AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber. The Meebo client runs within your browser, and like Google Talk, pops up with a single click. Just create a Meebo account and then link it to all your IM accounts for one-login access without having to bloat your PC with some overblown, adware-ridden chitchat client.

www.meebo.com

A free MS Office alternative that lets you rock while you work

Work sucks. If they didn’t pay you so well to do it, you probably wouldn’t bother. So why would you want to drop a few hundred bucks on a suite of business apps when you can get the same features online?

Ajax13 is one of many free office suite web apps, offering a word processor, an Excel-compatible spreadsheet program, a drawing app, and a PowerPoint-compatible presentation program. These aren’t sloppy editors, either each includes a standard button bar that is loaded with familiar tools. Plus, Ajax13 comes with ajaxTunes, a mini music player loaded with Internet radio stations, so you can chill with some tunes while you labor for the Man.

www.ajax13.com

Most blogs are about as interesting as the cracks in a sidewalk. Some even less so. Widgetbox gives you the tools to add cool, dynamic content to your blog in the form of hundreds of widgets for just about any purpose. Need to add instant lolcats to your front page? Select the I Can Has Cheezburger widget, copy the code, and paste it into your blog.

But there is more to the site than mere diversions. Widgetbox also gives you the tools to create your own widgets, either by turning your blog into a blidget that others can subscribe to or by coding something unique and adding it to the Widgetbox collection.

www.widgetbox.com

Cut your tunes some slack, man

Forget Last.fm. Never mind Pandora. Don’t even think about iTunes. If you want the ultimate in fully customizable Internet radio, get your slacking ass over to Slacker.com. Like Last.fm and Pandora, Slacker.com makes it mindlessly easy to create custom radio stations by typing in an artist you like and letting the site automatically compile a playlist of similar or related artists.

The interface is way slicker than its competitor, but that is just the start of its draw. Soon Slacker will offer a portable player that’ll let you take your stations on the road and a satellite player for your car.

Free but the player hardware to be sold separately.
www.slacker.com

Get to your PC from any phone or browser

When you need remote access to your files but don’t want to lug a laptop along, you need Soonr. This lightweight desktop utility syncs your files and Outlook email to SoonR’s website while you’re working and then serves them up via a clean web interface. The mobile-optimized service worked like a charm on every phone we tried it with, letting us grab and view images, Word docs, and spreadsheets easily. It also sports an organizer interface for Outlook calendars and lets you call your Skype contacts from your cell phone.

www.soonr.com

Simple organization for chaotic minds

Anyone with a Google account can track their calendars and to-do lists, but what if your needs are a little more unconventional?

Backpack is simple, customizable pages make it easy to organize your thoughts, no matter what you’re working on. Create lists and reminders; add notes, links, and versatile write boards; and share your pages with collaborators or make them public. You can then link to them from other pages or email new entries to your pages from any device.

The free service limits you to five custom pages, but the premium service enables up to 1,000 pages, a calendar, 500MB of file storage, and SSL encryption.

Free for basic accounts and $14 per month for premium accounts, www.backpackit.com

Three Os, unlimited uploads

Whether you’re fed up with daily upload and bandwidth limits or you’re just tired of letting Yahoo control your online life, Zooomr’s online photo sharing features are bound to be greeted as liberators. The site’s biggest draw is its Infinite Upload interface, which lets you select every last bandwidth-hogging image on your hard drive and toss it onto Zooomr in one massive batch. You also get the usual array of captioning, organizing, geotagging, and sharing tools. At press time, Zooomr had just launched a paid Pro service, which adds video support and eliminates ads.

Free for basic account/$20 per year for pro account, www.zooomr.com