Freeware World

Apple have made the jump into social networking in an unusual way. Ping is only accessible through the iTunes Store, and while Steve Jobs described it as being like Twitter and Facebook, it is in reality massively different, and in my opinion critically flawed.

Here’s what’s wrong with Ping:

Let’s start with the profile page. You can describe yourself, choose up to three musical genres you like, and add a photo. That’s it. No status updates! What’s bizarre and aggravating about that is how Katy Perry and Lady Gaga apparently can leave status updates, and have a Twitter like feed. ‘Normals’ like me can only comment on their updates. Users are second class citizens in Ping.

Ping’s next problem is that it’s such a closed system it feels claustrophobic, and this for me renders Ping utterly broken. Ping is only cares about what you’ve bought or might buy in the iTunes Store.

That’s all!

If you import a CD or MP3 you’ve bought elsewhere, Ping isn’t interested. Facebook and Twitter let me share what I want with my friends, and that’s why they work. Everything in Ping is about buying stuff in the Store.

I wouldn’t mind sharing my purchases and ratings with friends, but in a social network for music, there has to be more. I want to share what I’m listening to sometimes, as that’s more important than what I buy. Having Ping stuffed in the iTunes store and being so limited just make it look and feel like tragic marketing. I can like something in the store, but not in my library. Why not? Why can’t I choose what language Ping is in? Even clunky old MySpace lets you do that.

I love the iTunes library, I really do. As a music manager it’s unbeatable, but Ping is an absolutely terrible addition. I already have the Last.fm scrobbler, where I can share what I’m listening to, and on their site concerts and events can be created and shared by anyone. It’s a great system, and the community led, open atmosphere exposes everything that’s wrong about Ping. Ping feels led by marketers, not by its users.

Of course Apple want to make money, that’s fine. But while the high margin model works for their excellent hardware, successful social networks all have to feel free, and as if the users are number one. Apple shouldn’t let financial aims get in the way of what the community wants.

Ping is the first social network I’ve ever used that doesn’t feel social. Social networks don’t fit with the Apple ideology, because users need too much control, and control is something Steve Jobs doesn’t like to give away. With Apple, you do things their way, or not at all. For iPhones this is wonderful, but not social tools. Mark Zuckerberg certainly won’t be losing any sleep over Ping.

Fall is traditionally the time when things get busy - whether you’re beginning school, hoarding nuts or starting a new hobby, it’s a great time to tackle big projects and take on new tasks. If you’re a Chrome user, you’re in luck - we’ve got some great extensions that will definitely make your work even more productive, so keep reading!

Reading Glasses is the best app for blocking out unnecessary detail when you’re reading online. It’s all too easy to become distracted on the web - flashing ads, unrelated articles, and ugly website can all give you a hard time. Install this add-on and all the annoyances will fade into the background, leaving you to concentrate on the good stuff. Just remember that every link is still click-able, however, so be careful where you point that mouse!

TooManyTabs is pretty self-explanatory. When you’re busy studying and researching, it’s easy to open one link after another. Before you know it, you’re overrun with tabs and have no idea where the important ones are. If you want to be able to sort your tabs, search them and even get a bird’s eye view of everything you’ve got open, then this is the add-on is for you.

StayFocused will help you do just that. It’s a bit complicated to set up, but once you do you can be sure that you’ll never loose hours of your day to Icanhascheezburger again. You can also restrict sub-domains, so even if you block the Life & Style section of the online paper, you can still browse the stock market results without a problem.

Incredible StartPage is just that - a great extension that will make your start page as useful as possible, gathering together your most important and frequently used sites and web apps in centralized place. No more bookmarking or searching -  all the important sites will be there waiting for you, while you’ll also be able to take quick notes and integrate everything into Google Apps.

I’ve always thought it a shame that all those tweets we produce every day eventually end up disappearing into the ether, never to be read again. Then I stumbled across Twournal, a new service that allows you to immortalize your Twitter musings forever by turning your tweets into a book.

You can use Twournal to create, buy and sell Twitter books printed from your tweets. You simply sign up with your Twitter account and the service will generate and mail to you a free eBook containing a date-ordered record of your posts through the ages. It even includes color pictures taken from Twitpic, Yfrong, TweetPhoto, and the like.

If you want to purchase a hard-copy, printed and bound book of your tweets, prices will vary from $15 for a standard book of less than 800 entries, to $135 for a tome fashioned from between 2,400 to 3,200 posts with full color pictures. Check here for the full price list.

At the moment, Twournal is still in invite-only private beta. Luckily for you, we’ve teamed up with Twournal to offer 100 free invites. Head to the Twournal home page and click ‘Create Twournal’ then choose the third option: ‘Create Twournal when you get your invite code’. Enter the code ‘onsoftware’ and you’re ready to start making your own personal Twitter journal!

Like Canabalt, Solipskier is a game all about forward motion. Guide a crazed headphone-wearing skier along a piste of your own making, nailing as many jumps and drops as you can manage without allowing the skier to fall out of the screen altogether.

All you need to do is click and drag the mouse to create your ski route, and the skier will follow behind. Let go of the mouse button and you’ll stop creating snow, but if you do it after a jump your skier will perform tricks in the air, increasing your score.

Solipskier is simple but hard to put down and full of neat little sound and graphical touches. You’ll need Flash, and you can play it here.

While most people have been taking it easy over the summer vacation, Gmail seems to have been working overtime. The email giant is just getting better and better - a new interface, updated undo send and even multiple account login! The latest feature to make it to our inboxes is Gmail Priority Inbox.

The feature hasn’t been fully rolled out yet, so don’t worry if you can’t see it in your account - it hasn’t appeared in mine yet, but as you can see from the screenshots, Tom’s already prioritizing with the best of them!

Gmail Priority Inbox is going to work like this: using technology similar to its anti-spam features, it will automatically identify important emails based on your usual email patterns - what you read first and who you actually reply to. It will then put these emails in a separate part of your inbox, so you can read them first and leave the less important stuff until later.

Even if Gmail Priority Inbox gets it wrong, there is also a feature to mark individual mails as more or less important, moving them in or out of the priority area as appropriate. If this feature works well, it will be huge, especially for high-volume emailers. I can’t wait to try it out, so hurry up Gmail - I want Priority Inbox now!

iPhone: The USA TODAY app for iPhone delivers the latest news, sports, weather and photos directly to your mobile phone. The free app condenses content from USA TODAY into an easy-to-access interface to help you stay ahead of current affairs on the go. You can check the latest headlines in six different categories (news, money, sports, life, tech and travel).

Windows: Need an app to manage, view and edit images? Look no further: Zoner Photo Studio Free is what you’ve been searching for. This great free app lets you manage photos with ease, fix and optimize them with a set of editing tools, view them in full screen and finally share them online on Facebook or Flickr.

Mac: Worried about what your kids are doing online? OnlineFamily.Norton gives parents the comfort to set their children free online while still keeping them safe and sound. Once it is setup, you will be able to see when your kids are online, what they’re looking it, who they are chatting with and even what they’re searching for.

Sorry kids, but the golden summer is drawing to a close and it’s almost time to head back to the miserable world of the education system. I’m so glad I’m not you. Don’t be too despondent though because there are ways you can lift the doom of heading back through those gates of hell once more.

If you’ve got an iPhone or iPod touch then you’ve got access to a whole bunch of apps that’ll make the next year at school or college that little bit more bearable. Heck, you might even start enjoying it (actually, don’t quote me on that). Here’s a selection of essential free apps to help you with all subjects and to get you through the rigors of the school day.You can also check out the Back to School section of the App Store for other inspirational applications.

Math

Primary: Basic Math - Teaches under 12s addition, subtraction, multiplication and division through a series of drills. The app includes a report card to keep track of performance, along with an on-board calculator with sound effects.

Secondary: Equation Genius - In a muddle over your equations? This app will help you to solve first, second and third degree equations, as well as helping you discover unknown variables.

College: CT Math Prep Practice Test Questions - Prepares you for your final exams by offering simulations of actual tests. Perfect answers to each question are provided, along with a detailed rationale explaining the workings out.

Science

Primary: Basic Science Quiz Lite: Teaches a range of science disciplines through a series of multiple choice questions. Topics include digestion of food, classification of living things, water, and the Sun.

Secondary: Experimenter: Guess what kids? Science can be fun, as this awesome app proves. Experimenter explains some awesome experiments you can perform at home that will help you discover more about science- and make a big mess.

College: Periodic Lite: A periodic table is an essential for many science degrees, and here’s one you can carry around with you at all times. Periodic Lite includes info such as atomic weight, electron configuration, melting point and ionic radius.

English

Primary: SpellingMagic - Teaches children how to spell words through fun games. Games include balloon popping, hangman, spelling tests and word spinning.

Secondary: iBooks - Actually, this one is a must-have for all levels of education. Downloading eBooks with iBooks will allow you to carry your course books around with you in your pocket rather than lugging them in your satchel.

College: Advanced English Dictionary and Thesaurus - The perfect companion for any literary student, this dictionary from WordNet boasts almost 140,00 entries, covering 1.4 million words. Synonyms, antonyms, similar and related words are all provided.

Languages

Primary: Feed Me! - Designed to expose kids to other languages at an early age, Feed Me! is a fun word game starring a monster who teaches numbers, colors and shapes and more. There are editions for Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Italian and more.

Secondary: Free Translator - This free, multi-language translator uses Google Translate to help you translate words and phrases from a range of different languages. You can flick between source and target languages with the press of a button.

College: Classics2Go(Spanish) - A must for anyone studying Spanish literature, Classics2Go contains six classic Spanish texts: Don Quixote (volumes one and two), Gesta de Mio Cid, Lazarillo de Tormes, Platero y Yo, and Rimas.

Geography

Primary: GeoBlox Lite - Helps kids explore the World through an interactive game. The game involves helping the main character, Ella, discover famous landmarks, pinpoint the location of certain animals and answer trivia questions.

Secondary: Google Earth - An obvious, yet essential reference tool for any geography student, Google Earth gives you instant access to maps of the whole planet, along with geo-located Wikipedia articles for a huge range of places.

College: geotimescale - A handy reference to the geologic time scale of the Earth’s history. The app provides clear, charts outlining the dates of all the eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages. Each view is selectable with the tap of a button.

History

Primary: Turkey Time Lite - Give your kids an early introduction to American history with this fun game. The idea is to complete the thanksgiving-related puzzles, quizzes and riddles. Presented by a turkey and a talking Pilgrim character, it’s a fun way for little ones to learn.

Secondary: iHeritage Guide - Want to know the history of your local area? iHeritage Guide includes information about your nearest museum, buildings of significance, and events that took place where you are. Covers the USA only at the moment.

College: History: Maps of World - If you’re studying World history then you can’t afford to be without this one on your iPhone. The application boasts a large collection of ancient maps from across the planet and is searchable by keyword.

Other useful school tools

Best Alarm Clock Free - Make the process of getting up for school more fun with this popular app. Best Alarm Clock includes a range of great tones, multiple snooze settings and an attractive LCD display. It will even tell you the local temperature and weather forecast when you wake up!

Evernote - A superb note-taking app that allows you to record written notes, photos and links on your iPhone then access them from any computer whenever you like. You can even record and save lectures using the built-in voice recorder, so you need never pay attention in class again!

Nimbuzz - If you’re studying away from home, then Nimbuzz is the perfect tool to stay in touch with the folks back there. It pulls together all your instant messaging and social networking contacts and allows you to make cheap international calls using its NimbuzzOut VOIP service.

Last week Twitter announced a small but handy development - the arrival of a drag-on Twitter bookmarklet. Bunches of sites have a Share on Twitter option, but for those that weren’t down with the 140-character revolution, you’d have to take the link, shorten it with a 3rd-party service and then craft it into a minute yet fully-functional tweet. No longer! Go here, grab the bookmarklet, drag it up to your bookmarks toolbar and tweet anything from anywhere. And while you’re over at Twitter, log in and follow us!

Android users can now try out Gameloft’s excellent line-up of HD mobile games for free. You simply need to head to the Android section of the developer’s site, and choose one of the 11 titles. Select your phone from the drop-down list, then enter your cell number and you’ll be sent an SMS with a link to download the game directly to your device.

Bypassing the Android Market, this is a great new concept in offering trials of Android games, especially given the quality of the titles on offer from Gameloft. The 11 available to get at the moment are: Modern Combat Sandstorm HD, Gangstar: West Coast Hustle HD, N.O.V.A HD, Asphalt 5 HD, Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles HD, Real Soccer 2010 HD, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X HD, Dungeon Hunter HD, UNO HD, Heroes of Sparta HD, and Let’s Golf HD.

I’m going to come clean on this one - to this day, I’ve never been faced with a situation where I needed to rename a bunch of files. Judging by the number of file renamers that are downloaded from Softonic every day, though, I seem to be in the minority.

ReNamer is a batch renamer that’s been around for a while. Just because it’s getting on a bit certainly doesn’t mean it’s past it, though. This little application is small, but very, very powerful. If you have a serious renaming task on your hands, I’d recommend you take a look - what differentiates this app from its competitors is the variety of renaming rules you can choose - there’s 13 pre-configured and the option to add your own. Want to change a capitalized file name into lowercase? No problem. Transliterate Russian file names into English? Sure thing. Rename music using meta tags? Okeydokey! ReNamer has it under control.

Admittedly, if you are looking for a simple renaming app, there are better programs out there. Batch File Rename Utility is flexible, but more limited in its options, which keeps things simple. Ken Rename, meanwhile, balances options and ease of use nicely. If you’re not afraid of the awesome power of ReNamer, however, download it now. It will change your life.Well, maybe that’s pushing it, but I promise it’ll do wonders for your files!