Windows only: Firefox extension MinimizeToTray Revived is a replacement for the popular MinimizeToTray extension that has been abandoned and doesn't support Firefox 3 or later, and puts Firefox in your system tray with

Once you've installed the extension, Firefox will start minimizing directly to the system tray, though there are lots of choices in the options panel for how you would like to minimize the window—you can choose to minimize automatically, replace the close button with minimize, or even use a toolbar button instead. If you want to put Firefox in the system tray, it's definitely worth a look. MinimizeToTray Revived is a free download, works for Firefox on Windows.

Last year, we saw the launch of identi.ca, the open-sourced alternative to Twitter. At the time, we wrote that the company was never going to rival Twitter. As it turns out, that's not the goal of parent company StatusNet. Instead, the startup is looking to become something akin to a ‘WordPress for microblogs'. That is to say, they make a platform that others can easily download and install to their own servers. And today they're showing off the next major step in their platform: a hosted solution for those who don't want to bother with managing their own install, which will be hosted on status.net.

I'm a big fan of keeping things simple, but that doesn't mean things have to be bland. Google search results are pretty bland. Sure, sometimes you get returned things like YouTube thumbnails or pictures, but many results are still just a monotonous stream of blue links. Google tried to break this stream up a bit with its Search Options, an expandable feature, that gives you a left-side toolbar. But even that is just a bland series of links. Google is finally thinking about changing that.

Angstro, a 2008 TechCrunch50 startup, launched with a product that socialized the content on the web by tapping into your social graph. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today the startup is launching Knx.to, a real-time search engine capability and API that looks up most recent social information about any of your friends, from their LinkedIn profile to their Flickr account to their Facebook profile.

In order to understand Knx.to's virtue, it's best to see the technology implemented in an application. Ribbit Mobile, a Google Voice competitor and cloud-based VoIP telephony service, recently launched with the capability of integrating any calls to a contact with your social networks, which was powered by Knx.to.

Qwisk, which is launching today at the Real-Time CrunchUp, is an innovative new way to add a social twist to your browser. The site, which is a product of Y Combinator-funded company Socialbrowse, connects with you with your friends on Facebook and Twitter in real-time as you browse the web. We have 500 invites exclusively for TechCrunch users. You can redeem these invites simply by clicking here.

It's important to note that Qwisk is a browser extension, not a plug-in to a browser. On the site's page, you sign into your Facebook and Twitter accounts via Facebook Connect and oAuth. Qwisk will then add a sidebar to your browser that will show a feed of Facebook status updates and Tweets. You can also share any link or content to Twitter and Facebook from the sidebar itself.

Seesmic is having a huge week. The startup that develops Twitter and Facebook clients for the web and desktop just unveiled a native Windows client at Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference earlier this week. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today, Seesmic is launching its first venture into the mobile space with impressive apps for both the Android and BlackBerry, which are now available for download here. This is a pivotal moment for Seesmic because the startup is now conquering all the mediums—web, desktop and mobile. I sat down with Seesmic's co-founder, Loic Le Meur, to test out the apps.

BARCELONA (Reuters) - French mobile phone games company Gameloft said it and other software developers were cutting back investment in developing games and other applications for Google's Android platform.

Android has won attention in the mobile industry lately, with Motorola and Sony Ericsson choosing it for their new top models.

"We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like ... many others," Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said at an investor conference.

Yesterday, Twitter changed its organizing question from "What Are You Doing?" to "What's Happening?" But if you want to know what's really happening now, check out Hot Potato, a startup launching right now at our Realtime CrunchUp. Hot Potato is releasing an iPhone app which lets you create a stream of conversations around events based both on your location and what your friends are doing.

Hot Potato is a micro-messaging app that organizes the conversation stream by events. For Hot Potato, an event can be anything that is happening right now: a basketball game, concert, party, street fair, buying a new car, or even just two friends on a bike ride. An event is whatever is happening that people want to share.

A longitudinal study of thousands of US hospitals suggests that increasing the levels of medical IT may modestly improve the quality of treatment, but it doesn't actually help with costs, and may even make things worse in the short run as the current US healthcare economy is subverting any benefits it might otherwise provide.

Electronic medical records and the general digitization of medical data and practices are promoted as a way to slow the rapidly inflating costs in the US healthcare system...

Today at the RealTime CrunchUp Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took the stage to talk about the social enterprise with Erick Schonfeld and Steve Gillmor (he also introduced us to a new real-time Salesforce Chatter platform). Benioff has also signed a pair of copies of his book Behind The Cloud, which we're going to be giving away to attendees of today's conference.

To win one, just tweet out your favorite moment of the RealTime CrunchUp so far, and include the hashtags #CrunchUp and #Cloud in your tweet (#CrunchUp is the conference hashtag, and #Cloud will let us know who's entering the contest).

You've gotta hand it to Google: The company is never shy about throwing the proverbial spaghetti against the wall to see if it will stick. Over the years, it's introduced countless projects that have gone through long beta cycles only to fail miserably - or achieve a degree of success far below what was expected. Google Docs, for example, was supposed to topple Microsoft Office, and is still predicted to do so, but if that ever happened, I missed it.

Here it is, T-7 days until Black Friday, and you don't have any gift ideas?

I joined MacJury podcaster Chuck Joiner earlier this week to provide my ideas for gifting. This was part two of a holiday gift ideas episode on the popular podcast.

Joining me on the podcast were MacMouseCalls support genius (and grandmother) Pat Fauquet, Julio Ojeda-Zapata from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and The Mac Observer's Jeff Gamet.