Testing Automatrix out, claims to be a simple application installer, looks good after first impressions.

Tried installing google earth and it wanted to install in the home/user folder rather than /usr/local/google/google-earth  not sure I like that.  Need to re run with sudo.

Picasa installed perfectly and worked straight off. So did acrobat reader.

Some of the other interesting bits include, gdesklets, xDVDShrink, Apatana, VMWare and others.