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air jordans, melanie amaro, prime rib recipe, concord, …

1. air jordans
2. melanie amaro
3. prime rib recipe
4. concord
5. festivus
6. carlos beltran
7. x factor winner
8. zeno
9. green bean casserole
10. sweet potato casserole
11. footlocker
12. leona lewis
13. safe and sound
14. botticelli
15. francesca woodman
16. rodney atkins
17. standing rib roast
18. buffalo chicken dip
19. sugar cookie recipe
20. happy holidays

My Top 10 Favorite iOS Apps For 2011

As a devout Mac geek, I think there should be a People’s Magazine devoted solely to app developers. Let’s be honest, computer apps are what make our lives easier, not celebrities and cheating spouses. So with that said, I’m honored to release my personal list of my top 10 most used inexpensive and free iOS apps of 2011.

Some of these apps have been reviewed in MUO, while a few others may not have received the attention they deserve.

NewsRack

After checking email, the iOS and OS X RSS reader NewsRack ($4.99) is the app I start off with every morning. I tried several other RSS readers, but none provided the synchronization features I get with NewsRack. Talk about a time saver. I use NewsRack to synchronize with Google Reader, so that when I check and read feeds on my Mac, iPhone, or iPad, they automatically get updated on all those devices. The app also allows you to share articles on social network sites and services including Instapaper.

Instacast

When I finally go to bed at night, Instacast ($1.99) is the app I use to download and check the handful of podcasts I choose from to listen to as I fall asleep. Instacast makes it easy to discover, subscribe, and listen to audio and video podcasts over Wi-Fi and 3G.

The latest iOS 5 version synchronizes podcasts between devices via iCloud. In terms of podcast downloads, Instacast makes iTunes obsolete for end users.

Handoff

For some odd reason Apple has yet to make it easy to simply send documents from your Mac or iOS device to another Apple device. So I use Handoff ($1.99) nearly every day to wirelessly send articles over my local network, using the Handoff Safari extension, to my iPhone and iPad. Handoff should be a built-in feature in Apple devices using iCloud.

Photosync

Nearly every iOS screenshot you see in my MUO articles gets sent to my Mac desktop using PhotoSync ($1.99). I simply launch the app, select screenshots in my Camera Roll, and push and hold my finger on a button that automatically sends selected shots, via wireless transfer, to my computer. PhotoSync also works with Dropbox, Facebook, Flickr, and other photo sharing sites.

PriceCheck

I feel a little guilty every time I use PriceCheck, because now whenever I go shopping at say BestBuy, the local Apple Store, or Borders, I pull out PriceCheck and see how much I would save by ordering online, particularly from Amazon. As much as I would like to buy locally, 20% to 30% savings is something I can’t ignore. PriceCheck makes the process way easy with its built-in barcode scanner.

Mint.com

I’ve written several articles about Mint.com, the free online personal finance tracking and budget management service. Each iOS version of this Mint app (free) has gotten increasingly better. I can easily launch this app and get balances on my financial accounts and see if I’m staying within budget. If you want to save money, use Mint.

JotNot

JotNot Scanner Pro ($1.99, free version also available) is one of several apps that enabled me to use my iPhone as my wallet. When I need to keep track of receipts or other documents, I simply launch JotNot, snap a photo, tag it, and toss the paper receipt in the trash or a desk drawer. The iPhone camera shots are nearly the same, if not better, as traditional scanners.

iMovie for iPhone

iMovie for the iPhone ($4.99) makes it totally easy to edit family and event videos I shoot with my iPhone. After using iMovie for over a decade on my Mac, I thought it would be cumbersome to do so on an iPhone, but it’s not. iMovie is a fun, practical, creative, and easy-to-use video editor for your iPhone or iPad.

Dragon Mic

This year, I finally learned how to effectively use the speech to text application Dragon Dictate. On days I don’t feel like typing, I can simply dictate text, and the typing gets done three times faster with about 95% accuracy. Dragon Dictate for the Mac is expensive, but its developer Nuance has released free voice to text apps for the iPhone and other iOS devices. It also produced Dragon Remote Mic (Free) for the iPhone, which turns out to be very good for dictation.

So when I want to get my butt off my office chair and still type, I launch Dragon Mic, increase the font size of the document I’m writing, and dictate text as I walk around my office. Dragon Mic and Dragon Dictate prove that voice technology will only get better over time.

Zite

I’m a huge fan and reviewer of magazine style apps for the iPad – the device I use now to do most of all my extended reading, including ebooks, PDFs, and articles. I have and use Flipboard, Pulse, and Google Currents on my iPad, but Zite (Free) is the app I browse the most.

Why is that? Well, because Zite offers less, not more to read. It delivers articles based on my reading interests. The content of Zite is based on chosen topics, not direct RSS feeds. I discovered that this is a good thing because it prevents me from adding lots of RSS feeds, as I have done in my Google Reader account. It also means that I get content from sites other than the ones I regularly visit.

Well, that’s it for my top 10 iOS apps of the year. If I had more space I would iA Writer, Hello, Instagram, and iAnnotate. Which apps that came out in 2011 would you add to the list?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Rock Out To International Radio Stations With TuneIn [Android 1.6+]

Wait, isn’t radio dead? Isn’t this the era of Pandora, Last.fm, and Bandcamp? Well, according to over 10 million users, radio is alive and kicking. All of these people (between 10 and 50 million, in fact) downloaded the free version of TuneIn for Android, and it has a 4.5 rating with no less than 133,000 reviews. In a word, that is stupendous .

To see why all of these people love TuneIn so much, I decided to take it for a comprehensive spin. If you’re into music but not so much into radio, scroll down and let’s see if I can’t change your mind.

Picking A Station

As you launch the app, a station menu pops up, offering several ways to find your next station:

By “station” I mean an actual radio station – not just one broadcasting over the Internet.

The Music submenu offers a rich selection of genres:

And once you drill down into a specific genre, you get a list of stations, each with its own logo:

And now all that’s left is to tap a station and start listening. What’s cool is that there are stations from all over the world, not just the States. For example, here’s Boca Radio, from Spain:

Not all stations offer an amazing bitrate; Boca Radio, above, streams at only 32kbps, which is really quite low (but still okay, compared to “regular” radio). Some stations stream 128kbps, and some even go as high as 160kbps, which is a very nice bitrate. TuneIn adjusts the bitrate down if your connection can’t handle it.

Specialty Stations

One of the more interesting categories in the genre list is called “Specialty”, and hosts gems such as this station, called Birdsong Radio:

As you may have guessed, it plays… birdsongs. You can hear tweeting, chirping, warbling, and other nature sounds. It sounds like a weird idea at first, but it’s actually quite soothing (give it a try, really).

Background Indication

Once you switch from TuneIn to continue using your device for other things, you can easily access it again via a nice status bar indicator:

The indicator shows what station you’re listening to, as well as how far along the current song is. Tapping it once pops you right back into the app.

Settings

The settings screen is very simple, and looks like this:

That little TuneIn Pro notification at the top is the only plug for the commercial version I could see. Very low-key and tasteful. The “Shake for Related” functionality is off by default, and for good reason: When it’s on, TuneIn just switches stations when you shake the device. This can be nice if you have your phone sitting next to you and you want to give it a brisk shake if the current song is annoying. But if you have it in your pocket and are walking about, you would definitely want to keep it off.

By the way, a note about the look and feel of the Settings screen: The iOS-like on/off toggles don’t come with TuneIn, but with MIUI ROM, a free ROM for Android I have recently installed (I will tell you all about it in another post).

TuneIn For The Web

If you spend the bulk of your time in front of a PC, you may want to check the Web-based version of TuneIn, which we’ve recently covered.

Inducting TuneIn Radio Into The Best of Android

Last but not least, it is my great pleasure to induct TuneIn into MakeUseOf’s exclusive list of Best Android Apps. You can find it in the Music and Audio category in the good company of Slacker Radio, Shazam, SoundHound, and several other awesome applications that don’t start with the letter S. I’d also like to take this chance to thank readers Simun Simonsen, Jaseev Singh Anand and others who have taken the time to recommend TuneIn. Thanks, guys!

Let us know in the comments what you think of TuneIn.

Google+ Receives Stream Control, Improved Notifications & More [News]

The holidays are here, and that means a lot of people are spending time on social networking sites spreading holiday cheer – and desperately trying to avoid relatives. If Google+ is your network of choice, you’ll likely notice that they’ve added a couple new features.

Perhaps the most important is the new “volume control” added to your streams. If you have a lot of people and pages in your circles it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the updates. The volume slider lets users prioritize streams to control how much information from each makes its way to your main stream, reducing noise from streams that aren’t as important to you.

Notifications are another area of improvement. Google’s main focus was to improve the quality of information in notifications, as they were previously short and cryptic. They now include a more substantial preview that makes understanding the update easier.

That’s not all. Google has updated Pages so that “managers” can be added to administer a page, and there’s a new aggregate popularity metric that combines people who +1 a page as well as people who add it to their circles. Google+ Photos has been redesigned as well, receiving a redesigned Lightbox interface and improved photo tagging.

These changes are all notable improvements of existing features. Google+ may be fighting an uphill battle against Facebook, but if updates like this become typical, they stand a chance.

Source: The Official Google Blog

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2. air jordans
3. festivus
4. melanie amaro
5. carlos beltran
6. concord
7. prime rib recipe
8. zeno
9. footlocker
10. space ball drops on namibia
11. the thin man
12. republic wireless
13. safe and sound
14. green bean casserole
15. unemployment extension
16. leona lewis
17. botticelli
18. sweet potato casserole
19. standing rib roast
20. sugar cookie recipe

YouTube Reveals Most Watched Videos For 2011 On YouTube Rewind [News]

2011 is drawing to a close, and many sites such as Twitter and Facebook are introducing their top stories of the year. In the spirit, YouTube has released YouTube Rewind, a recap in YouTube videos of everything that happened in 2011.

This year, YouTube has reached one trillion views (that’s 1,000,000,000,000 playbacks), and they are now announcing the most watched videos of the year, most watched music videos, most viewed channels and more. On the Rewind site, you can view an interactive timeline of the entire year, with all the most popular videos for each month.

There were many viral videos this year, which one had the most views? Was it Nyan Cat? The talking dog? Was it a baby video? Or the usual cat flick? Watch this video to find out:

If a teaser is not enough, you can watch all the top 10 videos on this playlist. That is, if you haven’t watched them a hundred times already.

So what do you think of the list? Is there an awesome video that’s sorely missing?

Source: YouTube Blog

Share Your Windows Phone Internet Connection Using The Tethering Feature

Windows Phone is becoming an increasing popular platform, but its initial release in 2010 baffled commentators by omitting key functionality such as copy and paste and tethering. Omitting these features arguably punished the platform, resulting in some poor early reviews. Making matters worse was the fact that devices from Samsung and LG had wired tethering functionality that could be enabled via a hidden engineer’s console, resulting in a platform offering tethering on some handsets but not others. Hardly ideal!

Microsoft has since resolved these shortcomings with the latest release of its successor to the clunky old Windows Mobile. Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” is currently shipping on new devices from HTC, Nokia and Samsung and first generation devices can be upgraded to run this version of the software, which includes wireless tethering. This will enable you to share your mobile Internet connection with other devices.

Why the Big Deal?

News of this feature came late in the day (release day in fact!) thanks to Microsoft being cagey about some of the details of the Mango release. Despite being a much-requested function there was never any confirmation (although plenty of denials) that tethering of any kind would be included.

Fortunately for Windows Phone users, wireless tethering is now a possibility. The benefits of this are considerable. For instance, you might own a tablet, netbook or laptop and have no wireless functionality or access to any nearby wireless networks. Thanks to wireless tethering you can easily use your Windows Phone as a Wi-Fi router and connect to the Internet!

There are a couple of things to bear in mind, however. The first is that if your mobile phone contract does not have suitable Internet usage terms you could easily end up being billed for more than you can afford, so before proceeding, check the small print.

The second point to consider is that using wireless tethering can be quite draining on your mobile phone battery, so it is advised for only short-term use unless you are able to keep your Windows Phone charged.

Activating Internet Sharing

Microsoft’s inclusion of wireless tethering was done with so little fanfare that you might be forgiven for not realising that it is included on Windows Phone Mango. To get started using this function, you will need to open the Settings menu. This can be found on the Start screen and is also available by swiping left or tapping the arrow in the top-right corner of the screen.

With the Settings menu open, first scroll down to Mobile network to confirm that both Data connection and 3G connection are activated. You will need the 3G connection active if you are to have any hope of achieving fast mobile Internet! Enable these options by tapping the switches; when active they will be highlighted to match your phone’s current accent (the color of the tiles on your Start screen).

Tap the Back button on your phone to continue. You will now need to find the Internet sharing option in the Settings menu; a single tap of the switch in this screen will enable tethering.

By activating wireless tethering you will also activate your phone’s wireless function, which is one of the reasons why battery life is affected by this feature.

The Internet sharing screen will now display a few instructions, advising you that up to 5 guests can share your phone’s mobile Internet connection. A default broadcast name will be listed along with a password that you can use on any device that will be used to share the connection. The number of connected devices will also be listed.

Connecting To Your Windows Phone Wireless Hub

You don’t have to use the default options, however. By tapping the Setup button you can configure your own broadcast name by tapping into the field and overtyping the existing name; the same can be done with the password (a minimum of 8 characters is required) and you can also switch the Security type between Open and WPA2. Remember to tap the OK button when you’re done.

With the options set as required and Internet sharing activated you will now be able to connect to your phone as if it was a standard wireless hotspot. Any tablet, e-reader, laptop, netbook, even a desktop computer or another mobile phone can take advantage of your Windows Phone Wi-Fi hotspot by simply identifying the device’s broadcast name and entering the password.

Battery & Security Considerations

Despite the excellent flexibility that wireless tethering offers, there are obvious drawbacks. The first is with the battery life; the more users you allow to connect to your Windows Phone the more data will be processed and the greater reliance on both mobile Internet and Wi-Fi. You could end up with your phone’s battery being seriously drained in under an hour!

Although an open (password-free) connection is available as an option, this isn’t recommended unless you’re in a relatively remote area. The last thing you need – especially if you’re billed on mobile Internet data usage – is to be sharing your connection with unauthorized people.

Despite the battery issues, this is a welcome addition to Windows Phone, one that is quick and easy to use and is great for providing a much-needed Internet connection to other devices.

Let us know if you have any questions or problems setting it up.

GameFly Opens Digital Download Service For Subscribers [News]

GameFly is essentially the Netflix of gaming (though the two have no official ties), and the company’s maneuverings have closely resembled that of its movie-oriented cousin. Offering some sort of online service similar to Netflix’s streaming is an obvious next move. Now, it’s finally happening.

The new service is called Unlimited PC Play, and it does what it says. Subscribers can download a client, then play the available games as much as they’d like for no additional charge. The games are the same retail versions that you’d find for sale on Steam or Impulse.

What’s the downside? For now, it’s a limited selection of titles. While there appears to be a fair number at first glance, many of the games are titles like 18 Wheels of Steel: Haulin – not exactly the stuff that makes hardcore PC gamers salivate. Still, there are some enjoyable titles available including Assassin’s Creed, Sam & Max and Saint’s Row 2. No Mac compatible games are included.

Currently this feature is considered to be in beta, so you might run into a glitch or two as you enjoy the titles on offer. Pricing starts at $15.95 per month for a GameFly membership, which allows you to have one physical game disc out at a time. Upgrading to the two-disc plan means spending $22.95 per month instead. The Unlimited PC Play feature is available to all subscribers at no extra charge.

Source: SlashGear

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2. carlos beltran
3. matt barkley
4. melanie amaro
5. concord
6. prime rib recipe
7. footlocker
8. colts
9. air jordans
10. the thin man
11. zeno
12. unemployment extension
13. prometheus
14. leona lewis
15. standing rib roast
16. prometheus trailer
17. botticelli
18. francesca woodman
19. sugar cookie recipe
20. melanie amaro x factor

Organize Your Piles Of Files & Other Stuff With Stuff Organizer [Windows]

One of the things that I’ve been procrastinating about for a very long time is sorting through all of the pictures, videos, data files and wide assortment of other “stuff” that’s scattered throughout my computer like a cluttered basement that’s just waiting to be cleaned. The only thing is that I can never find the time to actually tidy up my computer. The files continue to build, and I’m sure one day if I don’t get things taken care of, my hard drive will die and I’ll lose it all.

There have been a few cool apps listed at MUO to help organize files, such as Nancy’s review of NiftyBox and SmartShuno, and Jeffry’s list of simple tips – all for organizing files on a Mac. I wanted to find a similar app that can help on a Windows PC. While you can do this by just opening up Windows Explorer and sorting out the files one at a time, there is an application called Stuff Organizer that can really help speed up the process of…well….organizing your stuff.

How Stuff Organizer Can Streamline Your Disk Cleanup

The way it does this is by helping you to organize files not based on where they are stored, but on what they are. It’s sort of like creating a file folder and labeling the folders “Applications”, “Games”, “Pictures”, “Videos” and so on.

In other words, it doesn’t really matter where the files are stored, Stuff Organizer creates a database that connects each file with the file’s location as well as any other information that you want to connect with that file to better organize it.

Within each category of file type, you can create sub-categories to even better sort out those files. In my case I want to separate photos that I want to use with my articles from the family photos that I’ve taken on our last family vacation. Right now, all of the pictures are stored throughout the “My Pictures” folder.

To get started, create your new category and then click on “Add stuff” to either add a directory or files.

Browse to the files that you want to add. With files, you can choose multiples. Keep in mind that if you click the “Unpack” box, any ZIP or RAR files that you include will automatically unpack. Stuff Organizer comes with the Unpack extension installed by default.

The software can be used in two ways – or both ways, depending on what you want to do. Whenever you select a file or group of files, you can either leave the target path blank, or you can include a target path. If you include a target path, it is sort of like using Stuff Organizer to move files out of one folder and then re-sort them into a new folder. This is probably what most people will want to do – use Stuff Organizer simply as a tool to go through their hard drive and sort out the mess of files in a way that makes more sense.

However, if you leave the target path blank, the software will simply mark that file under the category you’ve created, but its path will remain unchanged. If you do this, you aren’t physically organizing the files, you’re simply creating a sort of virtual database where the file locations are stored. Stuff Organizer becomes your one-stop “index” where you go to find files.

The reason for doing this may be that you are a programmer and you have applications that use log files or initialization files, and the path can’t change. If you struggle to find those log files, then Stuff Organizer can help – because all you have to do is open up the “Applications” folder to find the log file. With Stuff Organizer, you don’t have to remember where things like that are stored – the software remembers for you.

If you do leave “Unpack” selected when adding files, the processing window that pops up will take a little longer to go away – but you can see the progress as each file gets unzipped and sorted into the target directory.

In my case, this really came in handy, because there were a number of small apps that I kept losing because I couldn’t remember where they were stored. By adding them under the “Applications” category folder, they’re a single click away from now on.

For each file, you can also include search tags and a description. If you use the search tags well, as your Stuff Organizer database grows, you can simply do a fast search using the search field, and find your file in seconds.

The software comes with the functionality to unpack an assortment of archive files, including iso, tar, rar, zip and more.

It also comes with a bunch of already installed plugins, like the IMDb plugin that will automatically retrieve movie information for video files, and a PlayMusic plugin that will create a playlist file for all of your music and play them from within the program.

When your well-organized file cabinet gets extra huge, you’ll also want to make use of the database backup utility that’s available under the “Settings” dropdown menu. This will ensure that all the hard work you put into organizing everything never gets lost.

Just like in real life, organizing a huge mess is never easy, and it’s never something that you really want to start getting to work on either. At least with a program like Stuff Organizer, you will have a tool that will streamline the organization process and make it a whole lot easier.

So give Stuff Organizer a try and see just how simple and fast it is to get your digital house back in order. Share your thoughts about the software and whether it simplified the cleanup process for you in the comments section below.

Image Credits: ShutterStock