Windows: Are you a Firefox user? If so, you’ll be happy to know your favorite browser has been updated. Firefox 3.5 includes exciting new features such as a private browsing mode, an enhanced Awesome bar, better support for embedded videos, more powerful tools to manage your browsing history and a new engine that makes websites load even faster.

Symbian: There are plenty of applications for taking screen captures on your PC, but what happens if you want to grab an image of your phone’s displa? Well, grab a copy Best Screen Snap and your problems will be solved. Best Screen Snap is specifically designed to take screenshots of applications installed on your phone, which you can then send to your PC.

Mac: Ask anyone who’s used a Mac for a long period of time and they’ll tell you that Cocktail (now updated to version 4.4)  still remains one of the best all round admin tools out there. Cocktail can do all your essential maintenance tasks from clearing your cache to controlling sleep times. There’s nothing new in Cocktail that you can’t do in Terminal but Cocktail makes it so much easier through its GUI.

Since first trying Spotify earlier this year I’ve become a firm convert and even more so now that they’ve introduced some handy little features to enhance the listening experience. If you haven’t been using the service long, you may be unaware of everything that Spotify can do. Here are a selection of tips from sharing links to searching by record label to help you get even more out of the app:

Link To Your Favourite Track Moments

Want to share your favourite guitar riff or solo with a friend? Spotify allows you to link to a specific moment in a track with a little trick. While you are listening to a song, simply go to the Edit menu and select “Copy”. Then just add “%23″ with the time in the song that you want to share e.g. http://open.spotify.com/track/4caRcqZl3JyrxwhgV5HGQ8%23.

Share Tracks in Facebook or Delicious

You can now share tracks to Facebook or Delicious simply by right-clicking on a track and selecting the “Share to” option.

See What The World Is Listening To

To see what you, your country or Spotify users worldwide have been listening to most, click on “Home” in Spotify and then select the “Top Lists” tab. Clicking on the tab allows you to select top lists from around the world which is an interesting way to assess music tastes in other countries or see which artists you might be missing out on. Read the rest of this entry »

Google Earth has one of the liveliest user/contributor communities around, and there always seems to be people putting the program to new uses. This weekend sees the start of the Tour De France, and if you’d like an interactive map of the grueling route, try this Google Earth file.  Zoom in over a mountainous part, and use tilt to get a good idea of just how painful parts of the race will be! There’s an extended description of the route at creator Thomas Vergouwen’s blog.

All you need to do to view it is open Google Earth, and download the file. Select ‘open with Google Earth’, and you should see the red route with various flags and icons stuck over France. Check back at Thomas’ blog to see if there are real time updates available, so you can track progress on your Google Earth map. Check out this impressive YouTube video flypast of one of the mountain stage:

iPhone: If you’re a fan of console soccer games and have been waiting for a decent one to come to iPhone then get straight to the App Store because X2 Football 2009 is here. This excellent football game looks and plays a lot like Pro Evolution Soccer and FIFA. It contains loads of international teams, all with real players, and a control system that is as intuitive as a console.

Windows:  Being safe online requires a few different applications: anti-virus, firewall, email filter and more. But you can also have them all together in a single app with Norton 360. This comprehensive security suite protects youfrom any possible online threats, while keeping your system fully optimized and your data safe thanks to automatic backup copies.

Mac: Fed up of trying to bring all your video content together? Miro (formerly known as Democracy Player and now updated to version 2.0.5) is one of the best internet TV apps out there aggregating content from Hulu to YouTube. Miro means you don’t have to visit separate sites to keep-up with your favorite content.

Earlier this year I wrote about my enthusiasm for music app Spotify and today I’m pleased to read it’s going to get even better with CD quality streaming for premium users. A premium account currently costs around $10 per month and essentially means that your music doesn’t get interrupted by adverts. However, for the time being, only the most popular tracks will be streamed in CD quality with the rest being converted over the coming weeks.

To enable higher quality streaming, simply access Spotify’s service’s preference menu and tick the “enable high bitrate” box. The move will effectively double the quality of streaming on Spotify with the company claiming they now offer the highest quality music streaming site on the net. I may be tone deaf but as far as I can tell, the current 128kbs streaming quality is already pretty good so I’ll be very interested to hear what the new quality sounds like.

However, signs are that Spotify users are still opting to use the free service rather than upgrade to premium and this latest move is another tactic for Spotify to try and change this situation. They’ve already tried a few other methods to encourage people to convert such as releasing exclusive remixes to premium users, allowing them to enter compeititions and offering exclusive releases of new albums.

Free users haven’t been neglected though. A new mobile service is due to be rolled out shortly and will allow you to sync Spotify with your mobile device and will be available to all users. There have also been plenty of cool new features added to the free service since it was released which I’m going to cover shortly to help your get more out of Spotify.

Mac: As the popularity of the Mac platform increases, so too does the risk of malicious attacks. Doorstop X offers a reliable solution, providing an extra layer of protection for your Mac. The firewall has been specifically designed with Leopard users in mind, and features an easy-to-use interface, which displays security information and settings in a series of window panes.

iPhone: TweetDeck is one of the most popular desktop Twitter clients out there - and at long last an iPhone version of the app has arrived. It hasn’t half bad either. TweetDeck for iPhone displays everything that’s going on on Twitter in a highly organized way. As with the PC and Mac versions, TweetDeck for iPhone uses a system of columns to make it easy for you to track who’s doing what.

Windows: Singing along to your favorite bands is fun, provided you know the lyrics. And if you don’t, let LyricsFetcher do the hard work for you. This app scans your music library in iTunes or Windows Media Player, finds the lyrics to all your songs in the blink of an eye, and pastes the information directly into the files’s ID tags.

Since switching to Mac, I’ve abandoned almost all of the programs that I used on Windows with the exception of Microsoft Word. This is mainly because Word is so widely used by others that I’ve effectively been “forced” to install it even though I hardly use any other application in Microsoft Office. This is annoying for two main reasons: Office is expensive and takes up over 500MB of my hard drive. However, there are a selection of free and highly accomplished alternative word processing applications for Mac, some of which not only handle Word documents, but that you may even find improve on Word itself.

Writer Part of OpenOffice which is a cross platform multilingual Java based office suite that’s designed as a free replacement for Microsoft Office. Writer is the word processing component and allows you to open and edit Word documents (including .docx), export to PDF and even use it as a WYSIWYG editor for creating web pages. Some prefer to install NeoOffice which has taken OpenOffice and customised the interface for Mac.

AbiWord A better solution than Writer for those working on slower Macs. Like Writer, it allows you to open Word documents, save to .doc format and export to both PDF and HTML. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t support .docx format and may sometimes alter the formatting in Word documents so that they appear a bit messed-up. For those working on older Macs though, it’s an excellent alternative.

Bean Designed specifically for Macs, Bean is based on Cocoa so it looks great. Bean can also open and save in Word format but note that it can’t handle footnotes, images or pre-defined styles and is only partially compatible with Word’s file formats. In addition, it doesn’t work with .docx, hyperlinks are imported as text and exporting of tables doesn’t work well. However, in terms of speed and interface, Bean is excellent.

Google Docs Google’s online office suite is handy replacement for opening and saving Word documents. All you need is a Google account to get started. Google Docs features a clean interface, autosave feature, spell check and it can save your documents either to your account, publish it as a web page or automatically e-mail it as a Word document. You can even invite others to collaborate with you on a document.

ThinkFree Online The ThinkFreeOffice suite isn’t free but it’s online counterpart ThinkFree Online is. It only allows you to open and view any kind of Office document, including .doc and .docx and then embed, convert, share, upload or search them for free. You can perform basic functions for free but you have to sign-up for extra features such as the offline file management “Power Tool”.

If you’ve never performed a backup of your hard drive, then you’re risking potential disaster if it fails or that “on” switch simply doesn’t work one day for some reason. We all come-up with poor excuses for not doing so - our external drive is full, we don’t have time, we simply forgot etc. but CrashPlan is an application that definitely leaves no room for excuses. These are some of the ways you can backup with CrashPlan:

• Online Encrypted and unlimited size hard drive backups online for a modest fee
• PC/Mac Backup your hard drive to another PC or Mac and vice versa
• External Drive Backups performed in real time to USB and Firewire drives
• Friends You can even select a friend over the net to backup your files to

Best of all, not only does it work across platforms and is free but using CrashPlan couldn’t be simpler.  I setup CrashPlan on a Mac and within a minute, a backup of my entire hard drive was being performed to my USB drive. Note that the program is only free for personal use (they’ve got a special CrashPlan Pro for companies) although it is supported by a few ads. Read the rest of this entry »

Symbian: Whatever you think of the limited overs format, I defy you not to enjoy Cricket 20-20, one of the slickest mobile simulations of the sport I’ve ever seen. Cricket 20-20 allows you to play one-off limited overs matches and 20-20 tournaments. You can choose to play as any of the so-called ‘test playing’ international teams, and have total control over batting, bowling, and fielding.

Mac: The DivX Corporation was the pioneer of DivX and has always produced sleek and effective video players. DivX Web Player lets you watch DivX videos directly in your web browser without resorting to the standalone player. DivX Web Player allows you to play videos in full screen with navigation controls, or in a separate window so you can continue browsing other sites without losing the video.

Windows: If laziness is the only reason why don’t back up, here’s a way to avoid it: install PureSync and you’ll be able to create backup copies of your important data and sync content between different folders in a snap. You can manage multiple syncing tasks and schedule them to work automatically, according to a specific period of time.

In the world of iPods and iPhones, there’s nothing more annoying than not being able to copy your music from them onto your hard drive. This is because Apple have locked both devices so that you can only copy music onto them but not vice-versa. This is incredibly frustrating if you want to replace a song you’ve lost or deleted in iTunes, your Mac has crashed and your iPod/iPhone is the only place you’ve saved your music, or if you simply want to transfer some songs between computers.

Fortunately, there are two excellent “unlocking” solutions for Mac in the form of Senuti and iPodRip. Both applications used to be free but now require a modest fee to use them. Both have free trial versions however and I put them both through their paces to see which is best.

Senuti

Firstly, Senuti supports both iPod and iPhones so if you own the latter as well, then it’s a no-brainer which to choose. The interface of Senuti is very clean and as soon as you connect your iPod, your music and playlists appear pretty much instantly. To transfer a song, you can either drag and drop them or select the song and click the clearly labeled “Transfer” button in the top left corner.

That’s about all there is to it. Once a track is transferred, it is denoted with a blue dot which tells you that it has already been transferred to your hard drive. You can also play songs simply by double clicking on them. The demo is limited to 30 days and 1000 song transfers but there’s no nag screen and the full license costs $18. Read the rest of this entry »

BlackBerry: Not all of us have the memory of an elephant, and if you’re the kind of person who always forgets what you should be doing or where you’re supposed to be going then it’s high time you did something about it. Evernote is an application and web service that lets you capture, store and synchronize all manner of information on your BlackBerry, PC and online, all at the same time.

Mac: If you’re a fan of stunt car games then Crash3D widget provides a good fix of dare-devil fun directly on your Dashboard. Crash3D sees you take control of a stunt car as you race around a desert landscape hitting as many ramps and loop-the-loops as possible in an attempt to get your name on the high score table. You can play just for fun, or compete with players across the net and it’s 100% free.

Windows: As we reported yesterday, Opera’s latest build features Unite, a new technology that lets you turn your browser into a content server, sharing whichever files you like with other clients. Designed so that even novice users can enjoy it, Opera beta build 10.0.1589 has been the buzz of the week on software blogs. Give it a spin today!

According to Opera, today is the day the Web changes. Its new Unite service promises to radically extend what we do online. The basis of the new platform, which is built into the latest build of Opera 10, is to do away with Web servers owned by strangers and instead connect people on a computer-to-computer basis. The developer’s vague advert ( a candidate for the list of worst tech ads ever) fails to convey any of the real benefits of Unite, of which there are many.

Unite is designed to allow you to easily share you data, such as photos, music, notes - in fact, any file you have on your computer. You can share just with yourself (to access your work computer and home, for instance); with selected friends, family or colleagues; or with the whole world. What’s more, Unite works across any browser and even supports mobile browsers. This concept itself isn’t a new one - services such as LogMeIn and Laplink have been enabling remote PC access for years. In the case of Opera Unite it’s the way the service is implemented that makes it so special.

Opera Unite can be accessed from a tab on the side panel in the browser. The first thing you’ll need to do is create a free account with Unite. Once you’ve done this, you can start using the Unite ’services’, which are like mini-apps that allow you to perform certain tasks. There are six services pre-installed into the latest Opera 10 build, though obviously the company hopes that developers will embrace Unite and frantically start churning out new services. Here’s a look at what you get at the moment though: Read the rest of this entry »

Pocket PC: Generally speaking, tennis sims for mobile devices are pretty lame. Fiddly controls and jerky animation are often the main culprits in the failings of these titles. Not so in VT Pocket Tennis though, which proves to be one the most enjoyable games of its kind on the Pocket PC. It has a wonderfully realistic feel to it, with well-rendered 3D players, authentic shadow effects and motion blur.

Mac: If you’ve gone crazy for the iPhone then why not bring the iPhone look to your Mac? Spiffy Icon Pack provides over 50 iPhone style icons that give your Mac a unique flavor. All of the icons are beautifully illustrated featuring most major Mac program icons including Adobe Dreamweaver, Excel, iChat, iDVD, iTunes and Skype to name just a few.

Windows: After a short invite-only beta stage, Trillian has now launched as an open beta, which means you can freely download this powerful, sleek multi-platform IM client and give it a try. The new Trillian Astra Beta 4.0.0.109 features support for a dozen IM protocols and has an extensive settings menu to fully customize it.

I’m a massive Skype fan, but I’ve always found it lacking a little when it comes to emoticons. Personally, I love using smilies and find them a good way of injecting some fun into ailing conversations. But I get a bit bored of seeing the same old faces all the time - after all, there’s only so many times you can look at a ninja stick man before it stops being funny. So, I decided to track down the so-called ’secret Skype emoticons’, which is a set of smilies that the developer deemed too risqué to include in the program itself. Here is the full cut-out-and-keep list for you:

(toivo)
(mooning)
(finger)
(bandit)
(drunk)
(smoking)
(rock)
(headbang)
(myspace)
(flag:) - with the country code after the ‘:’. e.g. (flag:us),(flag:gb),(flag:au). You’ll find a full list of country codes here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Windows: are you tired of always listening to the same MP3 libraries and local radio stations? Then give Internet radio a try! RadioSure is a lightweight yet powerful online radio player that lets you listen to thousands of free online radio stations worldwide. Plus it lets you add your own radio stations and record streaming music to your hard drive in MP3 format.

BlackBerry: If you ever wished you were around when the industrial revolution kicked off, then Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon will give you the chance to revisit history. This BlackBerry version of the popular PC-based Railroad Tycoon game allows you to build your very own transportation empire. Your aim is to master supply and demand and use your tactical know-how to expand your rail network.

Mac: There aren’t half as many video conversion tools available for Mac as there are for Windows, so when one comes along which is quick, easy to use and most importantly, completely free, you take note. Evom ticks all of the above boxes and will even upload your conversions directly to YouTube. Everything is clearly presented, it handles all major formats and using Evom is a breeze.