Software
Kooaba App Review (iPhone & Android)
March 3, 2010
Kooaba, available for iPhone and Android OS, is a search app with a difference – it works by allowing you to take a photo of whatever it is you’re interested in and using image recognition to determine the search.
You can add your searches to your Kooaba library, allowing you to save searches for another time or for when you get home, as everything on your personal online account is also automatically synced to Kooaba’s desktop application.
Although this kind of application isn’t unheard of, in fact there are similar ones on offer such as barcode readers for product searches, it’s definitely an intriguing idea. Unlike many barcode applications, Kooaba doesn’t need anything but an image of a CD, DVD or book to find what you’re looking for on the web.
Continue reading »How to Reset/Restore Your iPhone 3G/3GS
March 2, 2010
In the past I’ve written about my experiences of Apple’s big iPhone 3.0 software update in which I’ve had my doubts over useful the update itself was and found that after two months I had to try to restore my (then) iPhone 3G PAYG as I suspected (or hoped) the problems I had were due to some corrupted files and not a hardware fault.
Now as much as I like to do my fair share of Apple-bashing like any decent PC user and coupled with the highly annoying iTunes sluggishness we experience in Windows, I have to admit that they have made managing your iPhone day-to-day in terms of synchronising, backing up and restoring it when needed very simple and effective.
Unfortunately, iPhones are not without their faults, issues and problems like any other mobile phone or mini-computer, the worst one I’ve experienced a few times now is everytime you try to start an app, it would then immediately crash! Handy eh? Suffice to say, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to become familiar with restoring and resetting the two iPhones that I’ve owned so far.
Continue reading »CleanMyMac Review (Mac OS X)
March 2, 2010
CleanMyMac is a utility for Mac OS X from MacPaw that helps keep your Mac running smoothly, and recovers disk space from your hard drive by removing files that you don’t need on your system. Being a Mac user for some time now, I’ve become accustomed to just dragging an application from my Application folder to the trash when I no longer want it on my MacBook Pro or Mac Mini.
However, unwanted files are always left behind which were used by whatever program is deleted, and these not only take up disk space, but can cause OS X to run slowly and get in the way of your productivity.
During my testing of CleanMyMac, it has become the most essential utility I’ve ever used on OS X, and does a great job of keeping my Mac in good shape. When you first open CleanMyMac, you may want to take a look at the various preferences which are available to you, which allow you to select which language translations you don’t need for your applications and enable options such as the automatic application uninstaller.
Continue reading »Zath’s Technology & Gadget Roundup (01/03/2010)
March 1, 2010
It’s the start of another week and hopefully you’ve all had a great weekend, I thought we’d begin it with a quite look back at some of the best in hi-tech gadgets and technology blogging that I saw from last week…
Best 10 Free Android Apps For Your Mobile Phone – do you have an Android-based mobile phone? Or are you planning on getting one of the many that are going to be released this year such as Google’s Nexus One, LG GW620, one of the new HTC’s Desire, Legend, HD Mini or one of the many other Android phones that will be released this year? If so, you’ll definitely want to take a look at this list of some of the best free Android apps that are currently out there!
iPhone 4G To Include Front-Facing Camera – another day, another rumour about the upcoming new iPhone 4G mobile phone, this time it surrounds the possibility of a front-facing camera that would allow people to make video calls/conferencing including using Skype. Although that said, these kinds of rumours are just that and nothing might come from them, for instance I wrote about a similar rumour of the 3rd generation iPhone getting a front-facing camera nearly a year ago and then when Apple announced the iPhone 3GS, we were left feeling a little underwhelmed by it all.
Continue reading »Yep 2 Review – Document/PDF File Manager For Mac OS X
February 27, 2010
Every Mac you buy comes with the iLife suite: iPhoto sorts and organises all of your photos; your songs are taken care of with iTunes but what about your documents? Well, iLife may not have you covered in that department, but what about all those documents you’ve got floating around your hard drive? For that you’re going to need Yep 2…
Not only does Yep keep track of all the PDF and office document files on your hard drive, but it also allows you to scan documents and file them so they’re kept organised and don’t take up room collecting dust in a cupboard. When you start Yep for the first time, it will scan through all your documents on your hard drive and display them in an iPhoto-esque window. The great thing about using Yep is that it doesn’t interfere with any of your file’s paths; it simply indexes them for easy access and you can still get to them without using Yep because you’ll still know where they’re located.
Continue reading »Intego VirusBarrier X6 Review (Mac Anti-Virus Software)
February 26, 2010
Shortly before the new year, Intego’s popular anti-virus offering for OS X received an update in the form of VirusBarrier X6, which builds on X5 with new features and a lower price point of £39.95 (ex. VAT) with a standard license that covers two Macs, not just one, so for instance you could protect your MacBook Pro and Mac Mini on one subscription.
If you’ve never heard of Intego’s anti-virus (after all, if Apple had their way, everyone would think that getting a virus on a Mac is impossible, although some people think Windows is Virus Proof too!) then you’ll also be interested to know that it can also detect Windows malware in addition to OS X, so if you have a boot camp partition setup, you needn’t worry about any viruses on Windows either!
I personally have never had an anti-virus on any Mac I’ve owned, so I was definitely curious to see if I had anything nasty hiding out on my hard drive that had escaped my attention – coming from years of Windows use before using OS X, it’s certainly a strange feeling not worrying about an anti-virus, but I definitely feel more secure knowing that I’m protected even though it didn’t find any malware when I left it scanning. The scan took around two hours to complete and was very thorough, which was re-assuring.
Continue reading »Microsoft Browser Ballot – You’re “Open To Choice”
February 23, 2010
In recent months and years there has been an extremely lengthy and somewhat tiresome squabble between technology giants Microsoft and the European Commission over how unfair it is that Internet Explorer web browser is packed into the Windows operating system and many users never become aware of any alternative such as Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari or more recently Google’s Chrome. Anyway, the result of the conflict is that users of Windows PC’s will soon be faced with a big decision.
You will be presented with the choice via a selection process that will appear on your PC within the next few weeks. Testing of the process will be next week in several countries including the UK, and you can download it via Windows Update. Eventually though, it will be an automated update that everybody that’s connected to the internet, should receive.
Continue reading »Linux Training Week: Which Distribution To Choose?
February 21, 2010
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Linux in the past week of using it is how versatile it is. I’ve concentrated on using Ubuntu 9.10 and found it to excel, in many ways, further than Windows and Mac OS X.
Of course Ubuntu is just one of the many distributions available out there, and Linux comes in many forms, including ones you may not expect; even Google’s Android OS runs off a modified version of the Linux kernel.
So with so many distributions to choose from, which should you go for? There are too many choices to cover, but there are definitely some main contenders. If you want an experience close to what you’re used to with Windows, you may want to consider openSUSE – an easy to use distribution with great hardware support and a Windows-esque start menu to match.
Continue reading »Top 10 Free Android Apps For Your Mobile Phone
February 20, 2010
My first Android powered mobile phone was the T-Mobile G1. Gosh I loved it. With its love or hate plastic build, easy to use functional QWERTY keyboard and all the social networking tools I could shake a stick at Android powered phones were definitely for me. Moving over from the likes of the iPhone 3GS, I jumped at the opportunity to go with an OS which was to me, for the customisation alone, better.
I now have a HTC Hero running Android 2.1 and love it – HTC Sense is no longer there, but some of the perks do remain. I can also cross use my apps which I love so much, that if they were to self delete themselves, I would cry – because quite simply I need them all. And so after testing out apps, Android powered phones and the whole shebang, I have drawn up a list of the top ten free Android apps you should have.
Therefore, if you’ve got an Android mobile phone such as the Nexus One, here are the all important apps you should take a look at…
Continue reading »Zath’s Technology & Gadget Roundup (20/02/2010)
February 20, 2010
It’s the end of another week in the online world of hi-tech gadgets and technology blogging and as usual there’s been a lot happening out there, so here’s a quick roundup of some of the stuff that we’ve found particularly interesting this week, let us know what you think to them too!
Linux Training Week on Zath – I’m sure we’ve all heard of Linux, but for me personally it’s not something I’ve ever seriously looked at because I always assumed it wasn’t worth the hassle of installation for something that wasn’t that worthwhile, well clearly I was wrong on that one! As you can see from this useful series of articles about the Ubuntu distribution of Linux – it’s easy to setup Ubuntu, it’s an easy to use the Ubuntu interface and there’s lots of software available for Linux.
Heineken Beer-Serving Robot of the Future – oh yes that’s right, in the future we won’t need to get up from the comfort of the sofa, instead the robots will bring the beer to us! This particular robot makes for a great novelty, but it does make you wonder about the potential of robots in the future.
Buy Walkie Talkie Watches? – admittedly walkie talkies aren’t exactly hi-tech these days or even that wanted by people now we all have modern mobile phones such as the iPhone 3GS and Nexus One, but these particular ones can be strapped on your wrist and would make for great free-to-use communication devices if you like to be out in the great outdoors or perhaps having a multi-car roadtrip given they have a range of up to 5km. I just wish I had some of these back when I was a kid!
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