Growl has been notifying Mac users of new mail, instant messages, completed downloads and much more for quite some time. It's now available for Windows but it was born and continues to shine on the Mac.

Many Mac users are already familiar with Growl. This software gives you notifications for things that happen on your PC. When a friend comes online, a new email is received, a file download finishes or the now-playing song changes in iTunes, Growl will tell you. You can also choose where Growl pops up to notify you, unlike a lot of the other notification pop-ups (or "digital toast") we have to deal with. The Windows version doesn't have quite the polish of the Mac version, but it's a good start.