Yearly Archives: 2012

Manage & Switch Between Multiple User Accounts In Android Jelly Bean

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Using an Android device in a situation where multiple users need to access it often? Don’t want them messing around with each others’ data and settings? You can easily switch and manage multiple user accounts on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean now, using free app User Management that utilizes Android’s built-in multi-user support. With User Management, you can easily Add or remove users as well as switch between different user sessions using Jelly Bean’s built-in multi user support. The only thing the app does is provide you with a user interface to do so, eliminating the need to do it using text commands. Read More

Adjust Threshold For Closing Metro Apps Through Mouse & Touch Gestures In Windows 8

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One of the main attractions of Windows 8 is its snazzy new UI. Formerly known as Metro, the new user interface is based on a tiled design, previously found only on Windows Phone 7 smartphones. Cosmetics aren’t the only change around, but how you interact with the operating system has also been reworked. As Windows 8 is designed to work with both tablets and desktops, you actually use your mouse the same way as you use finger gestures on touch screen devices. This simply means that on Modern UI apps, there no longer are close, minimize or maximize buttons, and you’d need to drag the opened application from top to all the way down in order to close it. The same, if done on a touch screen device, is a lucid experience, as you only need to swipe your finger from up to down, but is an entirely different story on a mouse. Windows 8 doesn’t let you specify the threshold required for the close behavior natively. If you want to control this behavior, or disable it entirely and rely on Alt+F4 instead, then what you probably need is Close Threshold for Metro Apps. This utility lets you adjust threshold for mouse, as well as touch gestures. Read More

Sticky Notifications Lets You Pin Reminders To The OS X Notification Center

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The human brain is a funny thing; it has the ability to remember the most horrific and embarrassing things about your life but will immediately forget something important and crucial. To deal with this behavior, people do everything from setting up reminders to using sticky notes and even tying strings around their fingers. What’s common among most reminder apps is that they are meant to remind you something at a defined time but forgetfulness doesn’t always give you a date. You might be working on something and perhaps you have a great idea that you need to get down on paper but get called away from your desk before you can. Sticky Notifications is a free Mac app (with a paid version available for $3) that is a reminder app for the present. The app is for recording an idea that you can easily view via the Notification Center the second you return to your desk. The free variant has no ads but will remind you occasionally to buy the full version. Read More

Easily Create, Share & Manage Shopping Lists With Marche For iPhone

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Grocery shopping can be a tricky and tiresome task, but if you can make a comprehensive shopping list, half your work is done. Making a neat shopping list requires a lot of experience and effort (not to mention patience), and you are bound to forget some item until you get back home with all the grocery bags. Your iPhone can help you in shopping, thanks to the plethora of to-do list apps available in the App Store, but using a generic list app is not as convenient as employing one that has been designed specifically for shopping. Marche is an app that comes with a database of all the items that appear most commonly in shopping lists. You just have to begin typing a product’s name, and it will appear in the app’s suggestion box. Apart from that, Marche makes use of icon badges to notify you if there are some items that haven’t been purchased while you are out shopping. The app even offers the option to present your shopping data in the form of a graph that can be exported in CSV format via email. Read More

ImgTransformer Is A One-Stop-Shop For Basic Batch Image Editing

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People are usually inclined towards simple and user-friendly tools when it comes to photo editing, and when a photo editor is available for free, and provides plentiful options and features – the offer gets a lot more appealing. If you have a bunch of photos that you want to resize or apply various color adjustments in one go, then ImgTransformer is probably just what you need. Most image resizers only give you a couple of options aside from resizing photos, but ImgTransformer is a one stop shop that lets you change output format, manipulate color depth, add watermarks, make various color adjustments (and so on) to photos in bulk. Read More

Skip Metro Suite: Bypass Start Screen, Disable Charms Bar & Switch List In Windows 8

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Microsoft has changed a lot in Windows 8. From the whole interface to the way we interact with the operating system, everything has been revamped to give it a more modernized look. Moreover, since both the PC and tablets will have exactly the same operating system, some of the previous features are disabled, and/or replaced with new ones, to make it more compatible with tablet devices. The famous Start Orb has been replaced by the Start Screen, and instead of clicking the orb from your desktop and opening applications through menus, now you have Tiles for accessing all the installed apps on your system. Instead of being the main workspace, the Desktop is also just another app, and when Windows 8 starts, you are greeted by the Start Screen instead of the Desktop. You can click the Desktop tile to open the desktop workspace; however, that adds an extra step for something that was only natural till Windows 7. Previously, we have covered applications like Classic Starter that let you bypass the Start Screen and move directly to the desktop. Today, we have another application called Skip Metro Suite that allows you to skip the Start Screen and make Desktop the default workspace that opens when Windows 8 loads. Read More

appmover: Point Your Android Device’s Camera At iPhone App Icons To Find Matches In Play Store

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With the previously-reviewed Apps Explorer for Android, we have already seen a pretty convenient way of checking the availability of an iOS equivalent of some Android-specific app in the iTunes App Store. Equipped with all the necessary filters and genres, the app makes looking up the iTunes App Store for required iOS apps a breeze. What if you were to take the opposite route and look up for the availability of Android variants of a bunch of iOS apps in the Google Play Store? How about achieving said purpose by reading and analyzing app icons present on an iPhone’s homescreen directly through your Android device. Enter appmover (beta), an innovative and user-friendly app lookup tool that has the capacity to scan and match app icons on an iPhone screen to present you with information about the availability of identical apps in the Play Store. In simple words, it can be seen as a OCR-like tool for recognizing iPhone apps via their icons. Once scan is complete, it lists out all the identified apps alongside their respective (or similar) titles available across the other app store. That’s not all, appmover can also scan your Android device for all installed apps and display relevant matches detected in the iOS’s app repository. It then compiles a list of all such apps which can be sent to your iDevice-owning friend via mail. Read More

WiFi Protector: Secure Your WiFi Connection With 256 Bit Encryption & Change IP Address

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When you connect to the internet using a wireless connection, you are always at the risk of a security breach. Someone with enough skill and knowledge can easily use the lack of protective measures and manipulate the connection to get access to your network and every device connected to it. An antivirus, too, only stops intrusions that are already available in its database, and cannot detect if someone is trying to hack into your system using a WiFi network. Other than hacking into your system, in the lack of proper preventive measures, you can also become a victim of identity theft. Keeping your network secure at all times is very important to avoid dealing with such issues. Today, we have a VPN service for you called WiFi Protector that allows you to keep your wireless network protected at all times. It is an extremely easy-to-use tool that protects your wireless connection using 256 bit encryption. No matter which network you connect to, WiFi Protector will hide your real IP, and allow you to visit websites and watch videos restricted in your region. More on WiFi Protector past the fold. Read More

‘Shutdown When Downloads Complete’ Arrives In uTorrent For Mac

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uTorrent is one of the most popular torrent clients out there and lots of people use it daily. For anyone who routinely uses uTorrent to download files, one practice is common; leaving the client running all night to let a download complete. There is sound logic behind this; the app can use maximum bandwidth, and since a watched torrent never downloads, this is the best way to stop yourself from constantly encouraging the download progress bar. While most users leave uTorrent running all night, only PC users had the option to shut down their systems once the download is completed. That option has now been added to the uTorrent for Mac. Read More

Syncbox: Make Your Own Personal Cloud Storage Network On Your Hard Disk

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When I talk to people about cloud storage, I usually get skeptical glances. Some people don’t use it because they simply don’t need it, while others remain silent, probably because they don’t have a clue of what I’m talking about. And then a few keep complaining about limited free cloud space at disposal and that companies should find a way to provide them with more. Bigger is always better, they say. Obviously, you can opt for paid subscriptions if free account doesn’t satiate your storage appetite, and all the major cloud services, including Dropbox, SkyDrive, Amazon Cloud Drive or Google Drive, offer paid storage plans. However, if you own a large hard drive and just want to access files placed on that drive from any place with internet connectivity, then Syncbox is a feasible solution. Contrary to other cloud services, it lets you create your own cloud – a server or central computer from where you are able to access and sync content using your notebook, Mac, Android or iOS devices. The procedure to setup the server and client is also straightforward, and the application provides two way syncing, as well. Read More

All-In-One Toolbox: Get Core Android Optimization Tools Under One Hood

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If you feel that your Android is burdened with loads of apps, cached content, tweaks, useless startup services et al, and are hence looking for a comprehensive system optimization tool for your device, then you must consider giving Infomobile’s All-In-One Toolbox a try. Available in the Google Play Store for free, this multilingual app vows to be your one-stop solution for optimizing and repairing almost every aspect of your Android, including CPU usage, RAM management, system storage, startup processes & tasks, file management, battery consumption, system & apps cache, and the overall performance. In addition, it brings to the table several handy utilities, using which you can batch un/install apps, move apps to SD card (and vice versa), add and/or remove apps from system startup, view detailed system information, specify a whitelist of apps to exclude during optimization, and clean up your call logs & SMS history. That’s not all; All-In-One Toolbox also supports a slick homescreen widget that make accessing and availing the app’s core features a 1-tap affair, literally. Read More

RocketShip: Create Shortcuts For Openning Apps, Files, Scripts & Folders

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We’ve covered app launchers in abundance before, and most of them provide quick access to frequently used apps or apps that you’ve bookmarked. The purpose of these apps is to minimize the number of apps in your dock and to allow you to group apps, so that you can easily find and launch them. RocketShip is a Mac app worth $1.99 in the Mac App Store that can be broadly classified as an app launcher. However, it is best described as a utility for creating universal shortcuts to apps, URLs, files and folders etc. The app isn’t just restricted to creating keyboard shortcuts for apps; it can also open files, folders, Finder, a website, your browser or run a script. Shortcuts can be added in combination with either the Option or the Command key or both. Shift and Control keys are not supported. Read More

MissionBoard: A Graphical App Switcher For Jailbroken iPhone & iPad

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The iOS App Switcher does a pretty good job, and lets users efficiently perform all the tasks that it has been designed for. Having said that, if you have a jailbroken iDevice, then chances are that you always welcome new alternatives to existing iOS features, and that’s exactly what MissionBoard is all about. This Cydia tweak does not bring any new functionality to the table, but provides a whole new way of task switching for users having jailbroken iPhone or iPads. MissionBoard does not disturb the existing App Switcher tray, and offers a separate view of recently opened apps. You can select any Activator gesture to launch MissionBoard, and the tweak will come up with a screen containing a thumbnail view of all the apps you used recently. Read More

Facebook For Android Gets Emoji, Event Creation & New Photo Upload Flow

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The official Facebook app for Android has just been updated in the Google Play Store with several significant features. Using various options included within the latest update, you can now easily and instantly create new events on the go, enjoy sharing emoji and pictures with your buddies while messaging, and share photos even quicker with a totally revamped and user-friendly photo upload flow. You got it absolutely right; the official Facebook Android client now allows creating new events, complete with event details, invitees and privacy settings, meaning that you can now not only glance at your previous and upcoming events & birthdays, but also throw an open invitation to your chosen Facebook friends for tonight’s barbeque party, all from your Android! The option to embellish your messages with emoticons and pictures is a welcome addition, too, whereas the improved photo upload clearly indicates towards most users preferring sharing/uploading multiple local photos (from gallery) to capturing and sharing one snap at a time. Read More

TweetLine Is A Holo Themed Feature-Packed Twitter Client For Android

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All the alluring mods and hacks apart, another thing that seems to be available to Android fanboys in abundance is the sheer amount of Twitter and weather apps. Talking of the former, the quality and number of features offered by several third-party Twitter clients seem to be continuously on the rise, as we just recently saw with OneLouder Apps’ chock-a-block offering in the form of Slices for Twitter. Although not as comprehensive as Slices, TweetLine by XDA member HappyDr0id is yet another promising unofficial Twitter client for Android that seems to tick almost all the boxes that an app needs to, in order to qualify as the default Twitter app on your Android. Currently in beta, TweetLine sports a gorgeously designed Holo theme that comes in as many as four different shades. In terms of features, the app supports almost all the conventional Twitter tools, such as tweeting, re-tweeting, direct messages, inline preview of embedded content, selection of default image hosting service for photo uploads, bit.ly integration for auto-shortening of URLs, auto-completion for @Mentions, detailed profile management, built-in search support, clipboard monitoring, in-app navigation via volume rocker, customizable notifications and several other subtle adjustments. Besides all said features, TweetLine supports several other other noteworthy options of its own that we shall explore past the break. Read More

Sharetastic Makes The Share Feature In Mountain Lion Omnipresent

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Mountain Lion’s new features were guaranteed to give developers lots of new ideas for apps, and they’ve definitely come through with apps like iTunification, Now Playing and Hiss, to name a few right off the bat. These three apps are similar in what they do, but perform an essential function for the new OS. Sharetastic is a Mac app worth $1.99 in the Mac App Store and is perhaps the first of its kind. The app imitates the new share feature that has been integrated across all stock apps in Mountain Lion; it runs in the Menu Bar and supports 11 services: Aperture, iPhoto, Reading List, Email, Message, Flickr, Sina Weibo, Twitter, Tudou, Vimeo, AirDrop - that you can copy and share items to. Items are automatically added whenever you copy something to your clipboard. The app supports shortcuts not just for toggling its panel in the Menu Bar but also for quickly sharing an item to one of the services it supports. Read More

Add Vibrations To Any iOS System Action With Vibrate Things

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If you use iOS (or any other smartphone platform, for that matter), you are bound to start associating certain sounds with particular actions after a while. The sound of unlocking your iPhone, or plugging it in for charging aren’t there just as cosmetic features. These sounds become a part of system actions in iOS, and make sure that you don’t have to keep looking at your iDevice while performing a minor task. Vibrate Things is a new Cydia tweak that takes things one step further, and you can use it to add vibrations to any system action you want. For instance, you can make your iPhone or iPad vibrate when it is plugged in for charging, or every time an app is launched, and on a whole lot of other occasions. The functionality offered by Vibrate Things might appear unnecessary to some people, but there are many scenarios in which the tweak can come in handy. Read More

Mirekusoft Install Monitor Is A Powerful Registry-Level Application Uninstaller

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I personally use Geek Uninstaller to remove installed applications from my PC, the reason being the application’s robust scanning and uninstallation engine that cautiously looks for any remnants of uninstalled software and helps you in removing all the bits and pieces, including registry traces and other miscellaneous residual junk. Windows’ integrated uninstaller feels quite primitive when it comes to features like these. While Geek Uninstaller is undoubtedly darn good, Mirekusoft Install Monitor also take cares of the job quite efficiently. It provides features akin to Geek Uninstaller and goes even beyond that (in certain cases its succeeds, while in others it doesn’t surpass the former). The application, along with removing bloatware off of your machine, also successfully erases various registry files. Should you need to only remove or inspect registry entries, you can do that too with its ability to monitor various resources of the installed applications. It watches files and folders created by the applications without intercepting your workflow. Although tinkering around with registry files is something I’d advice to skip altogether, power users will be delighted by this advanced option one way or the other. Lets find out how it fares against Geek Uninstaller. Read More

Inesoft Cash Organizer: Organize Your Financial Resources For The Better

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If your financial budget is always in the deficit, you may require a software to tweak the income-payment balance. From depositing money to your account to the payments and deductions required in practical life, a finance management application may help you trace the cash flow for resource optimization. Inesoft Cash Organizer provides an efficient financial management solution that keeps track of transactions everywhere you go whether it be on the desktop, web, smartphone, tablet or any other device. With support for both local and cloud databases, it stores all your financial information in a secure format using advanced encryption techniques coupled with scheduled backups. You can set up multiple accounts in various categories and projects coupled with reporting and documentation options to record transactions and payee lists. Moreover, a comprehensive currency converter and a payment scheduler encourage you to save both time and money. Read More

Maxthon Web Browser Now On iPhone; Offers Reader Mode, Download Manager & Cloud Syncing

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Maxthon is a name that has been around in the tech world for quite a while now, with applications for both mobile and desktop platforms. There is even a cloud storage service from Maxthon, which goes by the name of Skyfile. Regardless of all these useful services and apps, Maxthon’s web browser remains its most popular product. Maxthon Web Browser was first released for Windows and Mac, but it later arrived for the iPad as well. Now that the app has gained popularity on the iOS tablet, an iPhone version of the browser has been released, too. The app has a pretty neat interface that is reminiscent of Chrome for iPhone. Just like the iPad version of Maxthon, the iPhone app has a reader mode, a comprehensive download manager and the ability to sync bookmarks with your desktop computer. Read More