Minuteur is a great example of a simple app that does its job. It’s simply a timer. It can count up (perhaps allowing you to track the amount of time allotted to a particular client). It can also countdown (allowing you to remind yourself to get your laundry in an hour).

On a simple app, interface is always key. I’m sure that there are other timer apps out there, but I’d be very surprised if any look as good as Minuteur. You can customize the color, set Minuteur to float above other apps, set the transparency, go into fullscreen mode, even set a nonintrusive “remaining time bar” to float above other apps.

For a timer app the audio interface is just as important as the visual interface. In Minuteur’s case, it’s just as sleek and customizable as well. You can have Minuter tick-tock the seconds away, beep the last 10 seconds, and pick from a variety of different alarm sounds including “mechanical ringing,” “cuckoo,” and my personal favorite, “AirSiren.”

One of the best things about Minuteur is the way you can just set it and forget it. Before the alarm goes off the iTunes volume will be lowered and Minuteur will be brought to the foreground. To ensure that you won’t miss your alarm because your sound is muted, you can set a Growl notification as well as flash the entire screen white or black.

So whether you need to charge a client for your time or you just don’t want to leave the cookies in the oven too long anymore, give Minuteur a shot. Its genius lies in its simplicity, and it won’t disappoint you.

For those of you who don’t know, a desktop blogging app is an app that allows you to create and edit a blog post on your computer, before uploading it to the internet and publishing it on your blog or webpage. They usually make things like adding images and hyperlinks easier, as well as offering the convenience of being able to write without an internet connection. I’m writing these very words on a WordPress post-editing page in my web browser, and while WordPress is lovely and all, I really like being able to write away from the distractions that a web browser offers.

I decided to give Bleezer a try, and here’s what I found: it has some nice features like easy link creation and the ability to drag images right into the post. Unfortunately, my blog is blogger powered and doesn’t even support images unless they’re hosted somewhere else, so that last feature wasn’t too helpful for me.

Bleezer obviously has an OS X version, but it is also available for Windows and Linux, and it shows in the interface. The whole app just felt kind of Windows-ish, and really didn’t fit into my workflow too well. Oh well, you get what you pay for. If you’re dying for a desktop blogging client and looking for something a little more stable and feature-packed, I recommend ecto. If you’re a starving student, or just too cheap to buy ecto, definitely give Bleezer a shot.