Aatif Khan

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How To Jailbreak New iPad 3 (A5X) On iOS 5.1.1 via Absinthe 2.0

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All the speculation regarding the elusive iOS 5.1.1 untethered jailbreak has finally come to an end, with the just-released update to Chronic Dev Team’s famous Absinthe tool, pushing it up to version 2.0. With the latest release of the popular jailbreak tool, support for untethered iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak has been added for all the current devices capable of running the new OS, including the new A5X iPad (or the iPad 3, as some call it). The following post will guide you on how to jailbreak your new iPad on iOS 5.1.1 using Absinthe 2.0. Read More

Facebook Camera For iPhone Joins The Photo Sharing Foray With Instagram-ish Filters & Batch Upload

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When Facebook acquired Instagram a few weeks back for a whopping $1 billion, speculation was high as to what the social networking giant would do with the famous and viral photo sharing service. While it remains, frankly, to be seen how Instagram will fare in the long run, Facebook seems to have taken a leaf out of the latter’s book with the release of their fresh iOS app, Facebook Camera. A fresh entry to the iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPod touch (not a universal app, at least at the time of this writing), Facebook’s latest release brings easy sharing and viewing of all the photos from your timeline and newsfeed on your iOS device. The app focuses solely on photos, and other than supporting batch sharing of snaps from your iPhone’s camera roll, you can also consider it as a photo-only viewer for your Facebook profile, including those that you were tagged in, those that were shared by your friends, and those that you uploaded. On the sharing front, you even get a very decent set of nice looking filters and effects, some of which even put Instagram to shame. Despite the app’s rather-restricted App Store description, it packs a pretty decent offering, and we take you on a guided tour just past the jump. Read More

Capture Video To Create Free Pencil Sketch Animation On iPhone/iPad

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The iTunes App Store is brimming with photo & video apps, and every now and then, we see a new entrant that brings something new to the table. Consequently, this is the genre of apps that we cover perhaps more than others, owing to the fact that either we find something new that’s catchy and flashy, or something popular goes on a limited-time sale, deserving the attention of our readers. Go2Share’s Pencil Sketch Video may not be revolutionary or unique, but it gets the job done well, and went free for a limited time. Essentially, this neat little app will let you shoot videos on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, in a pencil sketch layout, parting an artistic look to your otherwise-ordinary creations. What’s even better, is that the app is dead-easy to use. We’ll explore that further just past the break. Read More

AirServer: Comprehensive Mac & PC AirPlay Suite With Screen Mirroring

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I’ve never tried to hide my preference for iOS over Android, and for multiple reasons. While both platforms have a healthy share of strengths and weaknesses, iOS offers certain features (natively) that tip the scale, at least for me, in its favor, one of them being AirPlay. The formerly-labeled-AirTunes protocol received a feature and nomenclature overhaul back in 2010, whence it included not just audio, but any kind of media to be streamed to any AirPlay compatible device. Then, with iOS 5, Apple pooled in AirPlay mirroring, allowing you to replicate your supportive iPhone, iPod touch or iPad’s entire screen on the likes of compatible HDTVs, laptops, Macs etc. Speaking of Windows PCs and Macs in this regard, there’s perhaps no shortage of AirPlay apps for both platforms, paid or free, that offer pretty reasonable functionality. That’s why I was not too enthusiastic about AirServer, an AirPlay server application for Mac and Windows that claims to be way ahead of all its peers. Turns out, my skepticism was ill-warranted, as the app clearly blows away all the competition. Read More

Moborobo: The Most Comprehensive Android & iOS Management Tool Yet [Review]

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When it comes to official desktop management tools for smartphone platforms, iOS and Windows Phone 7 appear to have a clear edge over Android – they have official applications for that purpose. Irrespective of the fact that both these platforms have a rather crippling dependency on iTunes and Zune, respectively, you get a utility where you can manage pretty much all the aspects of your smartphone with ease, all from a unified interface. This, however, doesn’t imply that Android is lacking, as Google’s brainchild has several great and capable third-party smartphone management tools that efficiently let you manage almost all aspects of your device, across almost all major desktop platforms. We have even reviewed some of those over time, like Android Manager WiFi, AirDroid and Droid Explorer, all of which come with their own unique feature offerings. That said, we still have to come across something as comprehensive as Moborobo, arguably the best all-in-one Android manager that packs quite a punch when it comes to diversity of features. Read More

[Giveaway] Decipher TextMessage: Save iPhone SMS & iMessage Threads To PC

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Back in the days of using Symbian ‘smartphones’, before threaded messaging perhaps even existed, I was a huge fan of text messaging. The biggest bummer than dumb phones posed at that time, at least from my point of view, was their limited message memory. When I got my hands on my first iPhone, the biggest relief was the fact that it was able to store virtually unlimited number of messages. Then, over time, the SMS craze diminished, until text messages remained only a form of communication that my phone was capable of doing – until recently. For some reason, I needed to save some messages off my iPhone, and that’s when I realized there was no way to do it (well, no easy way, at least). The hard way involved manipulating the sqlite database that stores iPhone’s messaging threads manually, while the easy way required shedding off some bucks for outstanding results. Decipher TextMessage is one such cross-platform paid application that will allow you to view and export all your iPhone’s messaging threads (SMS, MMS and iMessage) as text or HTML files and save locally, along with a few other, highly useful options, such as recovering deleted messages. Read More

Bump: Now Transfer Photos To Your Computer By Bumping Your Phone With The Space Bar! [Android, iOS]

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Getting photos off your iPhone (or into it, for that matter) has never been exceptionally easy (especially when compared with Android). Taking photos with the iPhone’s camera is no issue, granted, but when it comes to importing photos from your PC to your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, iTunes is generally your only bet. When we connect these devices to a PC using the USB cable, the camera roll is accessible, but imagine being at a friend’s place and wanting to transfer your recent snaps to their PC, and finding yourself wanting a USB cable? Such situations are not uncommon, and they’re proportionately frustrating. The infamous iOS and Android app, Bump, brought with its rather-peculiarly-silent update an awesome transfer method for all your photos from your phone to any computer, particularly for iOS devices (doesn’t mean it isn’t supported on Android). Details past the break. Read More

Symform: Shared Cloud Backup Solution With 200 GB Free Storage Space

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Cloud storage services are nothing new to the world of technology anymore, and every other day, we see a new entrant in this rather populated market. With so much on offer, it becomes hard to decide which of the many offerings is something new, and not just a replica of something already popular (they’re more than a lot out there). With that in mind, we found Symform to be something different from the lot – not just in what if offers, but also by how it works. Symform is a cloud-based data backup and storage solution that offers up to 200GB of free space for all your precious data, complete with a Windows client that is essential to use the service effectively. Read past the break to find out more. Read More

Browse Internet In 3D Using Mozilla Firefox 11 [Tip]

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Not everything on the internet is there for productivity – sometimes you just do things because they’re fun, and because you can do them. Firefox browser has never been my personal favorite when it comes to picking the best (it’s just a personal preference for Chrome – I don’t have any facts to back it up with), but Firefox 11 came with a very intriguing aesthetic tool that is pure fun to play with, even if not that useful. Most of the seasoned Firefox users should already be familiar with the rather extensive Web Developer tools that come with Firefox, but with the 11th iteration of the browser, Mozilla has included an experimental 3D browsing view, enabling you to explore the internet in 3D! Read on to find out more. Read More

Deck: Elegant Sidebar With Quick Toggles For iPhone [Cydia]

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For as long as I have owned and used an iPhone, the first package that got loaded after jailbreaking has (invariably) always been SBSettings. I find myself almost addicted to this highly useful Cydia tweak, which not only eases a lot of toggles, but provides much more than than mere quick switches for various settings. For seasoned iOS-jailbreak users, SBSettings needs no introduction, and neither does the fact that the stock look of the said tweak is, at best, unattractive. That isn’t really a problem, since there are a lot of themes available for SBSettings, but there’s always room for improvement, isn’t there? Enter Deck, the first (and in my experience, only Cydia tweak) that can give SBSettings a run for its money. Granted, it can use a lot of work in its present state, but even then, the elegant sidebar dock that it adds for quick access to a lot of iOS functions and apps, the beauty with which the dock has been implemented, not to mention the heavy customization, makes Deck a worthy contender. Read on past the break to find out more. Read More

SymMover: Move Installed Programs To Other Folders & Disks Without Reinstalling

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A vast majority of Windows programs follow one certain behavior when it comes to their installation – they set the default install location to your system’s Program Files directory. The reasoning behind such an approach, naturally, is to keep all installed applications in one location. The problem, however, starts when games, which can amass up to over 15 gigabytes in size, also follow the same pattern, and unless you manually change the installation directory to another folder on your hard drive, you can run out of disk space pretty fast on your primary drive. This, in turn, results not only in low disk space, but also performance issues like low virtual memory, larger fragmentation and what not. Normally, in such a case, your rescue means would include uninstalling the programs from their default location, and reinstalling in another one to regain your precious disk space back. If you want to avoid that hassle, SymMover can come in handy. Read More

Where Is The Start Menu In Windows 8?

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Ever since the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 became available, the complaint that most users daring enough to test the new OS have come up with is that there is no Start Orb (or menu, or button, whichever you prefer). This aspect of the new OS became even more erratic than before, since the Developer builds of Windows 8 did come with a Start Menu of sorts, but with the Consumer Preview (Microsoft’s terminology for a beta), it got stripped out completely. Instead, what you now get is a beautiful, alive and convenient – yes, very convenient – Start Screen that forms a major portion of Windows 8's new look and feel. Read More

Bypass Windows 8 SmartScreen Filter To Run 3rd Party Desktop Apps

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Among Windows 8’s new features has been the rather-hyped SmartScreen Filter. The filter itself is nothing new, as users of Internet Explorer have been familiar with the said protection measure implemented in Microsoft’s internet browser to provide precautions against phishing websites and malicious downloads. With Windows 8, Microsoft brought the same security concept to third-party programs (applications downloaded from the internet), and the default behavior of SmartScreen does not allow many applications to run when they’re downloaded. There is an easy method to change that, however, and you can find out all about it just past the jump. Read More

Where (The Heck) Is Computer In Windows 8?

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So Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 Consumer Preview yesterday, making it available to the masses for testing and getting a taste of the new Metro UI and the OS in general. Amidst all the oohs and aahs, one frustration that many users came across was the (apparent) lack of the Computer icon on the desktop. Now, to be honest, that’s nothing new, since from the days of Windows XP, the desktop had been clear of any icons sans Recycle Bin. Where the problem arose this time around, was the fact that previously, you could’ve easily accessed Computer (or My Computer, if you prefer that) from the Start Menu. Windows 8, however, took away the Start Menu in its entirety, and even the infamous Start Screen didn’t present any shortcut for accessing computer, or exploring the contents of the hard drive. Even though nothing has changed with respect to brining the icons back to their place, and considering that you can still browse the directory structure by navigating through the Libraries (read: Windows Explorer) view, this post is just a summary of how you can bring the good old Computer icon back to your Desktop, or make it shine on Start Screen. Read More

All You Need To Know About Windows 8 Store [Review]

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With Windows 8 comes the Windows Store, your ultimate stop to finding Metro Apps. To make matters easier for users, Microsoft has provided this central hub for finding and installing Metro Apps on the new Windows 8 operating system. The concept of app stores is nothing new, as OS X already has one (and a highly populated one, at that), and so does the iTunes App Store exist for iOS. Add to the mix Android Market and Web Marketplace, and the list of application hubs becomes almost complete. Borrowing from the same concept, the Windows Store follows almost the same pattern, providing apps divided in categories like Games, Social, Entertainment etc., as well as lists for Top free, Top paid, New releases and rated apps. Read past the break for our first impressions. Read More

How To Get Windows 8 Consumer Preview Product Key

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During the few hours that Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been publicly available, the maximum confusion that most users have come across is locating the product key for the latest iteration in Microsoft’s new operating system. This was rather different from what we saw with previous Developer Preview builds, where the installation of the OS proceeded without requiring any product key whatsoever. With Consumer Preview, users are rather stumped by the nagging dialog that halts the installation process until you provide a valid key. This is nothing to be bothered with, as you can easily get your own key by reading past the break. Read More

How To Change Windows 8 Lock Screen Background

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The Windows 8 Consumer Preview released today brought approximately 100,000 changes from the previously available Developer Preview of Microsoft’s newest OS iteration. Among these numerous changes lies the native ability to change the new Lock Screen’s background, something that was only doable through third-party tools until now. With the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, users can now not only easily change the background for lockscreen, but also set a custom picture of their liking, much akin to desktop backgrounds. Read past the break to find out how. Read More

ConvertICO: Batch Convert PNG/JPG to ICO & Back, Combine Multiple Images Into One Icon [Web]

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As the world has moved towards Web 2.0, and with the advent of HTML5, highly capable web apps have started to become a norm, ranging from capable image editors, multimedia creators, document manipulators, to the likes of architectural simulation and 3D anatomy of the human body. However, a web application doesn’t necessarily have to be complex and feature rich to prove useful, and that’s exactly what I found ConvertICO to be. This simple web app lets you convert images to icons, and vice versa. Supported output icon types include those for Windows (XP, Vista, 7), Favicons and even any custom dimensions that you choose. Moreover, ConvertICO adds batch processing to the mix, and lets you even merge multiple PNG files into one icon. Read More

Quickly Jump Mouse Pointer Across Several Monitors With Multi Monitor Mouse (M3)

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Throughout my professional life, I’ve favored multi-monitor setups, whether homogeneous or heterogeneous (although I naturally favor homogeneous ones, but you cannot always have that luxury). They give you more screen area to play with, make organization of work easier and considerably speed up tasks (personal experience here). However, for most people, multi-monitor setups imply having two display devices attached to a single PC, which is generally easy to manage. Things start getting complicated when you have perhaps three or more displays attached with a single PC, meaning that you get to control all of the extra desktop space with a single keyboard and mouse. One annoyance that such setups present is the excessive mouse movement required to travel/navigate across the multiple desktops. Multi Monitor Mouse (M3) is a very small tool that allows your mouse pointer to quickly jump across various monitors, making the whole experience considerably faster. Read More

[Giveaway] Twittelator Neue: Hands Down The Most Beautiful Twitter App For iPhone, iPod touch & iPad

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Twitter clients are nothing new to iOS, and the iTunes App Store is full to the brim with them, if not overflown already. The deep Twitter integration that iOS 5 users enjoy has made the microblogging network an integral part of many iPhone users’ lives. Then, coming back to Twitter clients, you get a lot of good options to choose from, including the official Twitter app, which is elegantly laid out, neat and super functional. Taking all this in account, one is hard pressed to find a Twitter client that outshines the competition, and Twittelator Neue does just that. It is, hands down, the most beautiful Twitter client ever released (yet) on any platform, mobile and desktop alike. Details past the break. Read More