Yearly Archives: 2012

How To Prevent CPU & GPU Temperature From Hindering System Performance

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Have you ever felt the heat emitted from your PC when subjected to high-end games that demand high system resources? Now, you can easily manage both your CPU and GPU temperature levels and set rules of action for situations where a violation occurs. By viewing the CPU and GPU performance from various aspects with emphasis on core-by-core or overall temperature readings, you can become fully aware of the heat building up inside your computer. With TThrottle, an application for Windows, you can easily define, monitor and react to temperature changes in the processor and GPU in multiple modes, which enable performance throttling for the greater good. In addition, programs running in Virtualization software like VMware or VirtualBox are also monitored for an effective operation optimization experience. Read More

FotoMix: Separately Edit Two Images & Merge Them Into A Single One

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Nowadays, hundreds of image manipulation software are available on the internet. Many of the good applications are paid, such as Adobe Photoshop. which provide you with countless options to edit images. However, even if you have no problem in paying the cost for a good software, or you opt for a free alternative such as ArtWeaver Free, learning to use it properly and to its full potential takes up a lot of time. In this age, when people have almost no extra time at their hands, learning a software as big as as Photoshop just to perform some basic image editing is not very efficient. What you can do to save your time is that, instead of going for a professional image editor, opt for a tool that is tailored to your needs. Today, we have an application called FotoMix that allows you to manipulate images using options such as crop, resize, rotate, enhance etc. The interface supports multiple languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Russian & more. You can merge two pictures together as foreground and background, apply different effects to images, perform saturation, light and color correction and do a lot more, using simple one-click buttons. You may also manipulate the complete image, or just parts of it with a resizable brush. Read More

SVPtube: Copy URLs Of YouTube Videos To Stream Them On Your Favorite Media Player

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YouTube has been cited as the most popular video streaming website on the internet. In fact, it is but a glimpse of what Web 3.0 might have to offer to the internet users. After having been widely acclaimed around the globe, time has taken us to a point where YouTube can not only be streamed on your desktop, but also, on Smartphones, Tablets, TVs, Laptops, Netbooks and Ultrabooks. While the videos are streamed and watched directly from within your web browser on Google’s own API, wouldn’t it have been better if you could use your favorite media player to watch those videos? In this way, not only you could customize the playback, but also, as flash streaming consumes more battery, your regular video player could save you the juice by using codecs and hardware acceleration. If something like this you’ve been looking for, then consider your wish granted, as SVPtube brings this concept to reality. It allows you to grab and stream YouTube videos directly on your regular media player. Good thing is, most of the major media players are supported, including KMPlayer, VLC and Media Player Classic, just to name a few. It simply does so by silently sitting on the system tray, and automatically triggers the media player should you copy a YouTube video’s URL to the clipboard. Does it fare well with Google’s integrated flash player? Let’s find out. Read More

BlinxBox Is An Elegant Android Home Screen Widget For Instagram

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Who isn’t familiar with the rollercoaster ride of the popular photo editing and sharing wonder, Instagram, on Android. Just hours after its release to the Google Play Store, the highly revered and anticipated app amassed a million downloads; then within a few days of arrival, it surpassed the five million download mark, thereby going on to become the most popular Android app from the social genre. Not to forget, its acquisition by the social networking giant, Facebook, is yet to yield some fruitful outcome. It’s not that the smartphone world wasn’t familiar with the potentials of Instagram before it hit the Play Store – try asking an iOS user for whom Instagram was once the sole reason for showing off rather proudly before ‘other’ mobile users. Having said all that, there is something about the entire package that die-hard Android fanboys are found yearning for, and those with iOS-powered devices can only dream of as of now: a homescreen widget! I mean, how could an app of the caliber of Instagram afford not to offer said feature to, at least, the Android users? While iOS users can hinge on a miracle to get said feature on their devices, it’s time for Android users to rejoice, as BlinxBox is here. Read More

Get The iOS 6 Notification Center Twitter Widget In iOS 5

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There can be no getting around the fact that iOS 6 has borrowed a lot of its good stuff from a slew of Cydia tweaks. You might remember InstaTwitter, a tweak we covered a few days back. By a lucky chance, we combined the widget with InstaFacebook in our review, and a few days later, Apple did exactly the same thing when they announced the official social widget for iOS 6. The iOS 6 Notification Center widget will let users tweet and update their Facebook status right from the NC. However, there are still a few months separating iOS 6 from iPhone users, and if you can’t wait to get your hands on all the great features on offer in the update, there are plenty of Cydia tweaks that will let you recreate those functionalities even in iOS 5. So, if you own a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch, you can have a taste of Apple’s official social widget right now (at least, to some extent). iOS 6 Twitter Widget for Notification Center is a new addition to the Cydia store that does not have the Facebook button, but imitates the Twitter part of the iOS 6 widget pretty accurately. Read More

Rename: Edit File Names & Add Spotlight Comments In Bulk [Mac]

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Batch file renaming is often needed when you have to organize a large number of files, and their names make little or no sense. Image files from your camera are the first thing that come to mind, but the need to clean up file names can occur for just about any file type. Rename is a batch file renaming app for Mac, which, unlike many file renaming apps that we covered earlier, has multiple ways of changing the file names; with Rename, you can simply select an entire folder that contains the files you want rename, enter a word that is found in the file name, and the app will find and rename it. It saves you the trouble of having to select a file that is to be renamed, or finding it from a large folder. Other features of this app include adding a serial number to all files and folders within any folder, appending a suffix or prefix to a file name, adding spotlight tags in bulk, and removing a given number of characters from the start or end of a file name. Read More

Edit & Save Any Web Page Directly To Box, Dropbox & Google Drive [Chrome]

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Do you often feel the need to save web pages while surfing for quick access later, or to archive important information? Or maybe, you are a teacher who wishes to refer articles to students in a convenient manner? Whatever the case may be, you definitely need to install Save Content to Box, Google Drive & Dropbox, a handy extension for Google Chrome users that allows you edit and save web pages as PDF or text file to your Box, Google Docs or Dropbox account directly from Chrome. No more copy and paste needed, and unlike a bookmark, you have your own copy of the content, preserved in the form that you saw it in. It not only gives freedom to save web pages to these services, but also helps you to clean (remove unwanted content) the web page before saving. You may also utilize social media platform to share the articles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn directly from the extension, too. Read More

How To Skip Windows 8 Start Screen & Go Directly To Desktop On System Startup [Tip]

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With Windows 8, Microsoft has let go of the iconic Start Orb and replaced the Start Menu with Start Screen. Now, instead of clicking the start orb to access installed software, users have to use the Start Screen and search for the items stored in their computer. It would be safe to say that Windows has seen, effectively, a replacement of the Desktop with the Metro Start Screen, and now Desktop is also just another app. By default, there is no option to make Windows 8 go to the Desktop app when the computer starts. Previously, we have covered a couple of ways that allow you to skip the Start Screen and go directly to the Desktop; however, since both methods work using the Show Desktop shortcut in Windows, the Start Screen does come on for some time before going to the Desktop. Today, we have an application that does not let the Start Screen appear at all during startup, and the system goes directly to Desktop. In this post, we will explain how to use the tool in Windows 8. Read More

Download All Images From Any Website & Save To Dropbox & Google Drive [Chrome]

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Did you ever experience a moment when you wanted to download all images on a web-page instantly? While looking for unique quality images, we often explore different image hosts and libraries, such deviantART, Picasa, PhotoBucket etc. However, executing searches on all these sites and downloading images separately can be quite inconvenient. We have already covered a desktop application called Image Collector for image collection enthusiasts who may be interested in getting hold of exotic images from online galleries such as Picasa, deviantART, imgur, PhotoBucket and 4Chan. However, the caveat was that it was restricted to only these few websites. Image Collector Extension for Google Chrome, however, solves your problem for all webpages. This extension allows you to retrieve the script file to grab gorgeous images on the page you're just visiting and to save them to your PC, or upload them directly to your Dropbox or Google Drive. Read More

ExtremeCopy: Probably The Fastest File/Folder Move & Copy Utility

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When backing up data or transferring gigabytes of useful information, we often find ourselves waiting impatiently for task completion notification. Copying files and folders from multiple sources to various destinations in an organized batch operation is also a challenge for users. ExtremeCopy addresses all these issues and provides features like verification and enhanced file copy speed. It has been observed to outclass the Windows 7 explorer copy speeds by 20% ~ 120%, depending on the amount of data handled. Furthermore, it has also been seen to perform faster in comparison with previously reviewed utilities like SuperCopier and fairly popular TeraCopy. Read More

TextCrawler: Search, Modify & Extract Text From Multiple File Formats

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Whether you’re a programmer, data analyst or a text-savvy user, search and replacement of text strings is an essential requirement for better organization of information. TextCrawler stands out from the crowd as a free utility that provides advanced search capabilities for text modification over a wide range of file formats, like TXT, JS (JavaScript), PHP, HTML and more. With features like regular expressions support, character mapping, fuzzy search and scratchpad, you can surely monitor text to the minute level. The application not only lets you search text at super speed, but also equips you with extraction capabilities to save the required text string to a new file. Read More

Official Wimbledon App For iPhone & Android Provides Live Scores, Radio Broadcasts & Venue Help

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Tennis is among the truly universal sports on the planet. Soccer doesn’t have many fans in the US, while basketball & baseball aren’t admired too much in Asia, but when it comes to tennis, almost every region has produced some remarkable players. The Wimbledon championship is, rather accurately, known as the World Cup of tennis. It is the most prestigious and oldest tennis tournament in the world, and although the US Open offers more prize money as compared to The Championships, Wimbledon remains the favorite tennis event for most fans and players. In a couple of days, the players are going to be back on the grass courts of Wimbledon, battling it out for prize and glory. As hundreds of player compete in several categories each year, the official Wimbledon app for iPhone and Android is a must-have for all tennis fans who don’t want to miss even a moment of action. The app will keep you informed of all the latest news, results and player updates. The app also comes with the Wimbledon radio that will broadcast live commentary on all the important fixtures. Read More

Framator: Resize Windows With Pixel Precision For Screencasts & More [Mac]

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We’ve detailed Mac’s built-in screenshot capturing ability that works with Preview earlier, and no one can say that it lacks full functionality. Compared to it, the screenshot feature in Windows is almost useless, and PC users have to download a third part app to take a half-decent snapshot of their screen. Preview may have screenshot actions covered, but there are multiple other instances where you might need to sketch out pixel specific dimensions on their screen, like when creating a screencast. Framator is a free Mac app that allows you to create a frame and customize its dimensions as per your requirements. The frame can be moved around on the screen, and all icons and windows within the frame can be used normally. The app is free until the end of June, and since the functionality is rather minimal, free seems the best price to get it for. It comes with two frame presets that are ideal for submitting app screenshots to the Apple Store, so developers might be more interested in this app than the casual user. Read More

Eassos PartitionGuru: Create & Manage Partitions, Recover Files, Shred Disk Sectors & More

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With every new iteration of Windows, Microsoft opts for many new enhancements to existing tools. Same holds true for the integrated Disk Management utility, which has seen a lot of improvement with every new release. Creating new partitions via Disk Management works like a breeze, and anyone can create a new drive partition within a few clicks. However, various third-party tools go far beyond than what Disk Management has to offer, by throwing in plethora of additional goodies. If you’re looking for a feature-rich disk management tool, then you have probably hopped onto the right place. Meet Eassos PartitionGuru, a partition management application that does the job it’s supposed to do, and does it surprising well. Apart from creating (or deleting existing) partitions, of course, the application emphasizes on a number of additional features that are not to be found on other free tools, such as Partition recovery, Partition cloning, file shredding, file recovery, building USB bootable disk, verifying and repairing bad tracks, and much more. We all know that how RAID improves data read/write speeds, but this comes at the cost of higher risk of data loss (in case of power failure). Folks who run their hard drives on RAID would be pleased to know that this application also offers RAID support, and thus provides recovery from your RAID drives. Read More

Stereomood For Android & iOS Streams Music That Matches Your Mood

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I love listening to music, and those hundreds of tracks constituting my Android’s music library serve as an ideal testament to the fact. The problem, however, is that neither do I have sufficient tracks from each and every genre to cater to my sudden mood oscillations, nor are there any easy means to sort whatever meagre options I have at hand as per my sentiments. Stereomood, a music streaming web app that lets users filter and listen to tracks that fit their mood, has decided to lend some much-needed help in this regard by launching official Android and iOS apps. Laced with hundreds of mood-oriented playlists, the official Stereomood mobile client ensures that you no longer have to fear waking up to a heavy metal track while listening to lullabies, or run into a series of classical tracks while looking to play just party music. The app has been designed to play only the sort of music that matches your mood, and to help you with picking the ideal playlist, it presents you with a neat tag cloud interface, complete with the tags referring to all the various mood-based playlists featured on Stereomood. Read More

Shynk: Remotely Access & Publicly Share Android Files Over The Internet

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Android users have plenty of ways to remotely access and manage their mobile data from their desktop browsers. However, when it comes to a reliable, swift and effective solution, hardly a name surpasses AirDroid. While our comprehensive review of this awesome app is enough to give you a glimpse of its various features, it is worth mentioning that the package is currently missing a couple of very important features. AirDroid works over your home network only, and hence, doesn’t let you share your device’s content with others over the internet. Enter Shynk (beta) – a similar looking app that fills the void quite adequately. Designed to work over the internet (Wi-Fi, EDGE or 3G), Shynk not only lets you remotely access your Android content from your desktop browser, but also enables you to share desired content with others via public URLs. So, whether you wish to access some important documents from your dad’s mobile back in Berlin, or wish to share images of last night’s party with buddies without going through the hassles of emailing or file uploading, Shynk is at your service. Guess what? It even has the capacity to fetch files from your Android’s root directories as well. Read More

Microsoft Research Introduces Cliplets, A Windows Application For Creating Cinemagraphs

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Cinemegraphs have seen a lot of popularity during the past few years. It’s a photography technique where certain subjects in the image make brief and repetitive moments, while the rest of the picture remains still, creating a blend between image and video. If you like making cinemagraphs, then you’re definitely going to love Microsoft Research Cliplets. Being promoted under the tagline "juxtaposition of still and dynamic photography", the application emphasizes on creating seamless loops of selected areas from your videos, into what Microsoft refers to as, “Cliplets”. While most of the cinemagraph tools only enable you to generate outputs in GIF format, the beauty of Microsoft Research Cliplets lies in the fact that, along with GIF, you can save your cliplets in MP4 and WMV formats. Coupled with an intuitive interface, the application is not only easy to use, but contains a handful of options to create countless varying cliplets. Keep reading for a detailed review. Read More

Audible For Windows Phone Mango Released; Access Amazon’s 100,000+ Audiobook Store On The Go

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Windows Phone 7 users might be feeling a bit dejected and left out today, since Microsoft announced that Windows Phone 8 (Apollo), with all its awesome new features, will not be coming to existing Mango phones. However, once you get past the initial shock and disappointment, you are sure to realize that things aren’t all that bleak for legacy device owners. There is the 7.8 update in the offing, promising to bring a lot of hardware-independent Apollo features to legacy devices, and then there is Amazon's Audible app that has now finally arrived in the Marketplace. People have been waiting for the app for quite a while now, and it has arrived at a good time, right after Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8’s Audible integration a few hours ago. The app itself is everything you would expect from an Amazon app, and brings its entire audiobook repository to Mango phones. Read More

How To Jailbreak iOS 6 Beta & Install Cydia [Complete Guide]

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Apple announced iOS 6 during WWDC 2012, and the world went into a frenzy (as it always does with any Apple offering). The 6th major iteration of the OS brought with it a lot of bells and whistles, like revamped Maps, more knowledgeable Siri, shared Photo Streams and loads more (you may want to check out the entire list of new goodies). On the same evening, iOS 6 beta became available for developers, ensuring that apps – the life and blood of iOS platform – became optimized before the operating system became available publicly. However, many, like us, just couldn’t wait to get their hands on the newest iOS for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, and many devices, despite not belonging to developers, got the new OS up and running in a matter of days. However, doing so resulted in one thing that most jailbreakers don’t like at all – breaking the jailbreak! The good news is, iOS 6 is jailbreakable, publicly, and even Cydia can be installed through some unconventional methods. We’ll get to that just after the jump. Read More

mStartEx: Metro-Style Start Menu Replacement For Windows 7, Vista & XP

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Microsoft has hugely changed the UI of Windows in the latest iterations of the operating system. While all previous versions of Windows were based on the Desktop workspace, Windows 8 has been laid heavily on the Metro looks. In the Metro UI of Windows 8, the Desktop is not the main workspace; instead, it is just left as an app that runs within the operating system. The Metro apps for Windows 8 work somewhat in the same way as the Android or iOS counterparts. Other than the apps, almost every other UI element is also changed to give it a more modernized look. People switching from the previous version of Windows, such as Windows Vista and Windows 7, will surely have a lot of difficulty in getting used to the new Metro Style UI. Even though, the final version has not been released yet, the Consumer Preview and Release Preview have given us a taste of what to expect from the upcoming release. You can download and install Windows 8 following the procedure available here. However, if you don’t want to install the complete operating system and still want to have a feel of the Metro UI, check out mStartEX. It is an application for Windows that works as a Start Menu replacement and displays programs in Metro style tiles. Read More