Tag Archives: featured

The Best Cydia Tweaks & Apps For Your Jailbroken iPad

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Owners of A5 devices had been without a iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak for quite a long time, until Absinthe 2.0 finally came along. So, if you own a freshly jailbroken iPad (especially iPad 2 or the new iPad 3), you might be in need of a refresher course related to Cydia, and all the wonderful things it is capable of doing. Most of the tweaks available in the Cydia store work for iPad, despite being developed specifically for iPhone. However, there are some tweaks in the jailbreak store that are designed particularly keeping in mind the iPad's larger screen real estate. Past the break, we have for you a list of some of the top tweaks of the genre. Read More

20 Features Of KMPlayer That You Probably Don’t Know About

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When it comes to choosing a media player that supports a slew of audio and video formats, there are certainly many applications at your disposal. While most users opt in for widely popular VLC player, many of us look for a media player that comes packed with better media organization features. KMPlayer is a media player which has seen a lot of improvements in the past few years. It offers a stupendous amount of audio and video processing related features, eye-candy GUI, (the now recently added) 3D video playback support and a powerful rendering engine. While it has the ability to play almost all types of media files, it also includes most of the decoders that are essential to render a wide range of media files and supports external decoders that can improve both the video rendering quality and color reproduction. Keeping all that in mind, we decided to go ahead, into the very depths of KMPlayer itself and unearth twenty awesome features that you may not know about. Read More

Best Ways To Send Text & Share Files From Your Mac To Other Devices

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One of the most common ways people send files or text is over email or instant messengers. Messengers are excellent if you’re sending text to someone other than yourself, but if you need to send it to yourself or to another system that you might be using, a messenger might not be the best option. As far as sending files to yourself is concerned, you almost always email them. In both scenarios, you’re emailing files because you want them on a different system, but you’re achieving that at the expense of cluttering your email inbox. Here are a few methods where you can send files and text from Mac to any device, i.e., Android, iPhone, iPad, another Mac or a Windows PC. Read More

10 Must-Have Free Preference Panes For Mac OS X

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Apps undoubtedly dominate Apple's ecosystem when it comes to getting anything done, and Macs are no exception. However, they are function specific, and many apps that perform simple little functions or act as utilities can be skipped altogether if you know the right Terminal commands. Not to say you won’t ever need to install an app, but apps do what they do and noting more. If you ever decide you need to tweak the whole experience you get from your Mac system, a Preference Pane (or prefpane) will be one of your top choices. The really awesome thing about a third party preference pane is that it works system wide. You won't ever be bothered with a preference pane cluttering your Menu Bar or having to enable it at start up. The following is a list of 10 preference panes you need to have on your system. Read More

[Giveaway] CollageIt: Create Gorgeous Photo Collages Within A Few Clicks

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In the past, we have covered numerous photo collage creators for different platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, Android, iOS etc. Today, we will take a look into another collage making tool for Windows and Mac OS X known as CollageIt, that with its easy to use interface design, lets you generate unique photo collages within a few clicks. You can choose among several different templates, which are further customizable with the number of editing options. The intuitive UI presents both the eye-candy and simplicity of use, to its users. The beautiful looking photo collage can be easily exported into PNG, PDF, JPG, PSD, GIF, TIFF, BMP and format or you may instantly upload it on your Flickr or Facebook to share it with your friends and family from within the application. Read More

Keyboard Shortcuts For Gmail, Twitter, Dropbox, Facebook & YouTube [Web]

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Who doesn’t love a nice, convenient hotkey? I personally think the only thing that can replace keyboard shortcuts (on PCs and Macs), could be the ability to transmit commands via brain signals, and that doesn’t appear to be happening any time soon. Keyboard shortcuts have transcended beyond desktop, and work on many websites and web apps, making it easier to navigate them. Almost all popular sites support keyboard shortcuts, and the following is a simple compilation of keyboard shortcuts for Gmail, Twitter, Dropbox, Facebook, and YouTube, some of the most visited and used portals across the world wide web. Since they are shortcuts, there isn’t much of an opinion to have about them, but for what it’s worth, this list is arranged with respect to which site has the best to worst keyboard shortcuts. Read More

The Best Free Android Launchers For Home Screen Replacement

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What makes Android different from many of its competitors is the degree of customization it offers its users, which goes to the extent of even letting users choose what is essentially the primary user interface of any operating system – the home screen Launcher! With Android, you can choose from a plethora of available launchers offering a diverse user experience range, and it’s just as simple as installing the launcher like any other app. In what follows, we will take you on a feature tour of some of the best Android launchers available, to help you choose the one that’s right for you. Read More

How To Set Default Apps For Files & Actions On Mac OS X [Tip]

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If you’re new to Mac or have just recently discovered that your Mac runs smoother if you use third-party apps as opposed to the default ones, you might be exploring how to set an app as the default one for its relevant file types. Unfortunately, this isn’t very easy to do. Many rightly go to the Open with… options of a file and set defaults there but either that doesn't always work, or the changes are reverted for no apparent reason. What you need is a more permanent way to change default apps. In what follows, we will tell you how you can set an app as the default for one or several formats. 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

How To Install Any App As A System App On Android [Guide]

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While installing an app on your Android device is as simple as searching for it in the Google Play Store and hitting install, or sideloading its APK on your phone, that always installs them as user apps (also referred to as data apps). At times certain apps need to be installed as system apps rather than user apps in order to utilize their full potential, and that’s where things get a little complicated. In this guide, we will show you how you can install any Android app as a system app on your Android device. Read More

Disable Switching Between Metro Apps (Switch List) In Windows 8 [Tip]

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The Alt + Tab shortcut in Windows for switching between open applications and other windows has been in use since a long time. Albeit, Microsoft introduced Win + Alt with Aero interface for switching between apps, Alt + Tab is still found to be more convenient by many people. However, Windows 8 comes with a lot of changes. Apart from the Metro Start Screen (which has seen both love and hatred from people all over the world), a Desktop work space is also included enabling you to work just as you used to do in the previous versions of Windows. At the first glance, the Windows 8 Desktop looks quite similar to that of Windows 7, but it comes with some new, fancy and useful added features that you probably haven't seen yet. One of the most significant UI change is related to application switching. Apart from the Alt + Tab shortcut for switching between desktop apps, Windows 8 provides a Switch List, which appears on the left of the screen and allows users to switch between all active Metro applications (including Desktop). Although Switch List is a useful feature, it can, at times, become a nuisance. The reason being that whenever you take your mouse to the lower or upper left corner of the screen, the Switch List pops up, blocking your view of the desktop Should you have a small screen (Notebook user?), it can create some serious problem, taking away that already limited screen real estate. In this post, we will demonstrate how to disable the Switch List in Windows 8. Just read on. Read More

Enable Keyboard Shortcuts & Create Custom Hotkeys In Gmail [Tip]

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Gmail is becoming an increasingly popular email service. When Google launched it back in 2004, no body knew it would receive such mainstream acceptance.  Right now, it is the 2nd largest email service around and time is not far for it, to claim the 1st spot. Albeit Gmail provide a lucid user experience, various tweaks and tips make it more robust. Keyboard shortcut support is a rather unknown feature of Gmail. If you love using keyboard shortcuts, you must know how convenient it is to use hotkeys to perform mouse-intensive tasks. If you're an avid Gmail user who spends the better half of the day managing emails, then you might want to use hotkeys to quickly navigate between mailboxes (Inbox, Sent Mail, Drafts etc.), and other Gmail sections including Contacts and Tasks. Gmail natively supports quite a few hotkeys used to jump between different Gmail pages & sections, and even allows users to create custom shortcuts for performing routine tasks. In what follows, we will let you know how you can enable keyboard shortcuts in Gmail and create custom hotkeys to quickly perform your routine tasks without loosing focus on your everyday computer work. Read More

How To Add & Remove Shortcuts From Windows 8 Win + X Menu [Tip]

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Compared to Windows 8 Developer Build, there are a lot of things that have been added to the Consumer Preview. In the past, we have extensively reviewed all the changes that have been made to the upcoming version of Windows. For instance, the removal of the Start Menu button has conjured up quite a debate on whether this radical change was for the good or the bad. Some people cite it as a step towards the future, while others claim this move to be a poor judgment on Microsoft’s part. Apart from some critical subtractions, there are some worthwhile improvements and additions in Windows 8. For example, the new Win + X menu of Windows 8 provides an easy way to access numerous System Utilities such as Programs and Features, Network Connections, Power Options, Task Manager, Control Panel, Run dialog box etc. However, there is no default option to easily edit this menu according to your own requirements. In this post, we will guide you through the process of adding and removing items from Windows 8 Win + X menu. Read More

Quickly View & Insert Accented Characters When Typing On Mac [Tip]

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If you’ve ever eaten at a French or Mexican restaurant, and afterwards tried to tell a friend over email or text message what you had, it’s likely that you had difficulty in spelling out the name of the dish, since both French and Spanish have special accented characters. Many words in the English language, like cliché and Résumé, that originate from French, make use of accented letters, and when writing emails or using them as part of ordinary everyday writing, you might face difficulty because your keyboard doesn’t have a quick option for printing these characters. For Mac users, these options are actually easily accessible in any app that allows text input. Read More

[Giveaway] DragonDrop Makes Drag & Drop Easier By Providing A Temporary Holder For Copying Files [Mac]

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If you’ve used a Windows PC, you know there is no such thing as Desktop Spaces like there are in Mac, and, without question, they are an excellent feature to have. While they make it extremely easy to manage windows and group your work by the apps you have opened, it can sometimes be inconvenient when you have to move an item from one desktop space to another. DragonDrop is a Mac app, worth $4.99 in the Mac App Store, that acts as a ‘holder’ for any file, folder or text you want to copy and paste from one location or space to another. The app works entirely in the Menu Bar and captures anything you drop onto it, leaving you free to use your mouse for clicking, selecting and dragging other things around. Read More

[Giveaway] Video Flow: Create Screencasts, Split/Merge & Annotate Them [Mac]

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If you’re in the market for an amazing screen casting tool, look no further than Video Flow for Mac OS X. The app is a video creation and editing tool, which allows you to create screencasts, annotate them with text, and add videos or audio files to your screencast, or simply annotate existing videos that you may have downloaded or recorded yourself. The app lets you split videos, and also supports video-in-video frame sets (whereby you can start a video within the current one),  truly setting itself apart from its peers. It allows you to resize your screencasts to the right size for viewing on an iPod, iPhone, iPad or YouTube. Additionally, when saving your file, you can choose the frame rate it should be saved with. The available range is from 10 to 45 fps. The only downside is the rather hefty price tag, which stands currently at $50, but you can skip that if you're lucky enough to win a license in our giveaway. Read More

[Giveaway] Defense zone HD Is A Stunning, Challenging 2D Tower Defense Game For iPhone & iPad

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Tower defense games never get old. With an abundant choice of such time-wasters available for iOS devices, there are a few that manage to stand out from the rest and demand respect. Defense zone HD comes as a fresh breeze for the tower defense genre, with a very simple gameplay and controls that one grows to understand in a few minutes. With graphics and animations worth awing at, and destruction satisfaction at its best, Defense zone will keep you occupied for hours as it begins challenging your strategies moving through the levels. The difficulty, unless you play with the it set to Easy, will mess with your head, enough to make you want to strangle someone. More about the game after the break. Read More

5 Tricks For Tweaking Finder In Mac OS X Lion

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Mac OS X Lion does quite a few things differently from Snow Leopard, and for the most part, users have either reconciled with it or found an app, script or tweak that helped restore it to how it looked or worked before the new version. Whether you are yet to upgrade to Lion, have recently done so or are already using it without any modifications in the hopes that you will eventually get used to it, here are a few things you can do to bring back some functionality to the Finder. Read More

How To Bring Back Windows Phone Marketplace In Zune [Hack]

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A few days back, Microsoft announced two major changes regarding WP7 - app support for pre-Mango versions of Windows Phone 7 was finally dropped (which shouldn’t be much of an issue, given the fact that no existing WP7 device is incompatible with Mango), and rather surprisingly, the guys over in Redmond killed the Windows Phone Marketplace in Zune. This may be to counter cracking of apps, or maybe the Zune Marketplace was just thought to be extraneous after the web Marketplace became active. Whatever the reason behind this move may be, apparently, it isn’t too difficult to get the Zune Marketplace back. Anyone can do this, even those who don’t have a developer unlocked device. In fact, to follow the method to hack the WP7 Marketplace back to Zune, you won’t even need to touch your phone, as everything will be done on PC. Read More

How To Run Android 4.0 ICS On Windows, Mac & Linux Using VirtualBox

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Android platform shines in nearly every aspect, from its large number of developers support to gargantuan amount of customization options. Being an open source platform, anyone can compile the code and cook their desired ROM according to their own needs (provided they have supported kernal and other required files). One of the latest iterations of Android OS is Ice Cream Sandwich or commonly called as ICS. ICS has brought to table some of the most wanted features of Android, one of them being Hardware Acceleration and brilliant UI .Last year, we covered BlueStacks, an Android app player for Windows that allows you to run numerous Android apps in full screen mode without experiencing much performance or compatibility issues. However, if you want to use the latest version of the Android operating system itself (ICS), without buying a new Android device or flashing a custom ROM to your Android phone, you can run it as a guest OS on your desktop computer using a pre-configured Andriod 4.0 virtual disk image. Just like any guest operating system, you can use all the features and options of Andriod ICS without making any changes to your host system. You'll require Oracle VirtualBox to run the virtual machine, of course. The rest is quite simple, but just in case you get stuck somewhere in the process, following is a brief and simple tutorial on how to get it running. Read More