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Mac; 
Linux 
It’s always surprised me that Google has a few desktop applications (Picasa, Google Desktop Search, Google Talk, etc…), but for one reason or another they don’t have any programs that leverage some of their other big services. Having a program for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and several others would all make a lot of sense in my book.
We’ve seen programs like Mozilla’s Prism that aims to convert a website into something that feels more like a desktop program. An Adobe AIR program, called GMDesk, also falls in that same category, but the nice thing is that it rolls up several of Google’s services into one convenient program.
When you run the program for the first time it will feel just like you’re using the Google services in your web browser. One of the nice differences is that the various Google services it supports (Gmail, Calendar, Reader, Docs, Maps, and Picasa) are all assigned keyboard shortcuts in the format of Control+[1-6]. That way it’s easy to switch between them.
The program works with both regular Google accounts and Google Apps accounts, but the only thing that I wasn’t too fond of was the slightly small font that’s used in Gmail. The developer is aware of the issue though, and is trying to figure out a way to fix it.
Some things I’d like to see in future versions of this would be a notification system for some of the services, a minimize to tray option, and support for Google Notebook. Hopefully the developer will continue to work on GMDesk because I think there are a lot of people who would like to see some of Google’s services taken out of the browser.
Get GMDesk for Windows, Mac, or Linux
Note: Requires Adobe AIR
Nobody gives Bubbles any love: [bubbleshq.com]
They brought web apps out of the browser years before Prism came out, but then development stalled. They’ve since picked back up, but instead of offering the option to use Firefox’s Gecko engine for rendering (which never worked for me, anyway), it automatically uses IE on the backend. There are several pre-made Bubbles, with things like popup notifiers for Gmail and Google Reader, and the ability to interact with some by right-clicking on a tray icon.
Not quite a Google Desktop App, but I recently re-installed Bubbles, and I at least prefer it to Prism.
Hi, I’m the developer of GMDesk. Thanks for the attention, I’m glad that you like it!
The Gmail problem lies within the AIR environment in conjunction with some special code Gmail uses (I’ve spoken to the Gmail team to try and figure out what’s going on). Basically I’d say that the font problem, as well as a show-stopper for the nice suggestions you have, lies in AIR not being mature enough yet, and it fails to give developers sufficient controls of some parts.
However, I hope these problems will disappear in the future, and that GMDesk will become useful for as many as possible.
Believe it or not I just came across that program the other day, and I do plan on writing about it. I’m actually trying to come up with a way to turn it into a CyberNotes, which is why I didn’t write about it as soon as I found it.
Hopefully you can get that worked out because it’s really the only thing that’s not the greatest with the program.
I’ve been using Prism for all of Google’s apps since the day it came out. But I’ll definitely have to give this one a try. I agree that it would be nice to see Google Notebook included, maybe with a quick add shortcut like Evernote’s. And also maybe a notifier for gmail and gcal would be great as well…..
Why do Go0Gle not use Mozilla thunderbird? Your know why Google not need Mozilla, google is very arrogant and want to make advertise or popup. Mozilla firefox block popup and commercial. Mozilla remove unsafty technology, google need that to make create spyware or advertise so try Download Google Chrome!
am in Africa and i believe tools like this are good but will be great if the where done with open source stuff:because of Mal-ware and all the virus, but do you have a version for UBUNTU ???
thanks