Pidgin - Multi-protocol Instant Messaging for Linux

Pidgin (the problem formally known as Gaim) is an excellent little app for connecting to Instant Messaging. This application works with Ubuntu -- actually, it comes standard with Gusty when it's officially released in October. It works with AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, Google Talk, and a ton of others. And of course, this Ubuntu application can handle away and available messages, file transfer, and all the other stuff that's considered standard. Also, there's plenty of plug-ins you can configure and add to extend Pidgin.

Download and find more about Pidgin at the official website.

Gmail Notifier - Gmail Linux Checker from Your Desktop

Gmail Notifier is an application to notify you of your Gmail linux messages right on the desktop. It's similar to MSN Messenger in the way it pops up messages. And, it even works for Mac and Windows if you have other operating systems installed. Gmail linux is relatively easy to install, and can be done in a way similar to other Ubuntu applications.

Fire up your favorite Terminal, and type in the following:

sudo apt-get install gmail-notify

That's it! Enjoy your trusty new Gmail Linux notifier.

SimDock - Daily Ubuntu Application to mimic OSX Dock

SimDock is an free Ubuntu application designed to provide a pretty application bar and desktop launcher for your desktop. SimDock allows you to copy some of the effects of Compiz Fusion without needing a window manager capable of composition. In fact, this free Ubuntu application works on most desktop environments. SimDock is written with C++ and wxWidgets. It's easy to dock things to the bar, and the application even includes a graphical GUI. This isn't exclusively to Ubuntu, and may work on a variety of distributions.

SimDock isn't included in the repositiories, so you'll have to install it from a .deb file. Go here to download the package. After that completes, fire up the Terminal and make sure you have the wxWidgets installed through the following:

sudo apt-get install libwxgtk2.8-dev

Then, install the SimDock .deb with the following:

sudo dpkg -i simdock_1.2-1~getdeb1_i386.deb

Enjoy your new daily Ubuntu application.

qBittorrent - a QT-based BitTorrent client for Ubuntu

qBittorrent is a QT-based alternative to using the default GNOME client supporting multiple downloads, integrated searching, and RSS support. It's quite a bit faster than Azureus, and provides most of the features expected in a good BitTorrent client, including advanced features such as encrpytion, DHT (trackerless) support, and uTorrent Peer eXchange (PeX).

Currently, the application isn't included in the Ubuntu Official Repositories, but you can add the qBittorrent packages by following the directions on the website. If you are using Feisty 7.04, you can add the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://hydr0g3n.free.fr/qbittorrent/feisty/ ./
deb-src http://hydr0g3n.free.fr/qbittorrent/feisty/ ./

After that's finished, you can install the package from Synaptic or from the command line:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install qbittorrent