Freeware World

Apple has held its traditional music-based fall event today, which some interesting new software announced.

From next week, iPhone and iPod touch users will be able to download iOS 4.1, the update to Apple’s mobile operating system. This clears up bugs and introduces the Game Center, which will bring together gaming in a new way on iOS devices. Incredibly, the 3D Unreal Engine was shown running some fantastic 3D games, better than anything seen so far on a mobile phone.

In November, iPad owners will finally be able to enjoy the goodness that iPhone users have been enjoying with the release of iOS 4.2. That means multitasking arrives, alongside a host of other interesting developments. Steve Jobs highlighted wireless printing, and the new AirPlay music streaming abilities for the tablet device.

With iTunes 10, there’s a new logo (recognizing the death of CDs), and the library view has been reorganized a little, making better use of space. The biggest development is Ping. It’s a social network all about music, within iTunes that will allow sharing of music, concerts and artist news. Calling Ping a musical mix of Facebook and Twitter,  Steve Jobs sensibly didn’t mention Last.fm!

We’ll give you the lowdown on the iOS 4 updates as soon as we get our hands on them, and see whether iTunes 10 lives up to expectations too.

Google Translate is a seriously useful tool but it can be annoying having to open a new tab every time you want to translate something. Easy Translator is a convenient desktop client that translates 58 languages and seems to be based on the Google Translate engine although the developers are a little more vague than that claiming that “Easy Translator employs the power of Internet machine language translation engines”.

Easy Translator is easy to use. Simply paste the text that you want to translate, select the languages you want to translate to and from, hit Translate and you’re done. There aren’t many other features apart from standard copy, paste and cut tools but there’s a print feature to print translations.

In test translations, Easy Translator produced the same results as Google Translate. What I really like about this tool is that when you copy the translation and paste it in somewhere else, it doesn’t include the original text attached to it, unlike Google Translate.

I suspect that for most languages, Easy Translate uses Google Translate as its main engine. However, it’s impossible to verify the accuracy of each translation. It’s not clear if there’s a text limit either although there doesn’t seem to be one. However, the more text you paste, the longer it takes Easy Translator to process it. Note that, unlike Google Translate, there’s also no auto-detect language feature for text that’s pasted in.

The GIMP is one of the best free image editing tools for Mac. It’s the closest thing you’ll find to Adobe Photoshop without paying big bucks. However, a frequent complaint by those switching from Photoshop to The GIMP is that the interface isn’t exactly easy to use.

The GIMP has been designed in a rather awkward way, so that anyone used to Photoshop quickly gets confused by menu layout and the different naming conventions that The GIMP uses.

An excellent solution to this problem is GIMPshop.

GIMPshop is a modification of The GIMP which gives it an Adobe Photoshop style interface so that you can enjoy the best of both worlds. All of the functionality of The GIMP remains the same with the bonus of a much easier to use Photoshop style interface.

GIMPshop features menu layouts, dialogs and naming conventions that all Adobe Photoshop users will be familiar with.

However, there are a few issues to be aware of when trying to install it on Mac. Firstly, you’ll need Apple’s X11 to run GIMPshop. Secondly, the main problem that Leopard and Snow Leopard users will have is getting GIMPshop to remain stable. Although GIMPshop is supposed to officially support Leopard and Snow Leopard, the reality is quite different.

It can easily be made to work properly though by modifying a library file. Instructions of how to do so are here and the libraries you need to make it work are here.

Of course, GIMPshop isn’t a replacement for Photoshop but it’s probably the closest thing you’ll ever get for free.

I’ve always professed that I’m no oil painting, but Aviary’s new Facebook app has proved me wrong - because now I actually am. Aviary Effects allows you to turn your Facebook photos into works of art, quickly and simply.

The application lets you apply effects to any photos of you from your Facebook albums and even get creative with photos of your friends. There are six different effects to choose from. Besides Oil Paint, you can also select Pop Art, Etch-a-Sketch, Warhol, Sketch and Lego. Each effect can be customized, changing the intensity via a slider, as well as altering the background colors and amount of brush strokes.

I should point out that Aviary Effects seems a little unstable at the moment, and it managed to crash Firefox a few times when trying to apply an effect. Nevertheless it’s a fun way to breath new life into all those profile pictures that have been there for years.

The Nexus One, HTC Desire and HTC Legend are all great Android phones, but they are all blighted by the same problem: a woefully short battery life.

The most disappointing discovery you’ll make when you first get one of these phones is that it barely has enough juice to make it until the end of the first day. From here on in, your daily routine will involve ensuring your phone goes on charge when you go to bed. Of course, this isn’t such a bad pay-off considering the quality of these devices, but there will be days when you won’t be able to charge it.

Here are seven ways to save battery on an Android phone that can be very effective. I’ve tried to include the main ones, although it’s also worth checking out the handy power-saving tips on TechCredo, Mr.Gadget, and also on the Help section of the Nexus One forums.

Monitor your battery use

A good place to start is by checking which apps, tasks and processes are killing your battery. You can do this using the built-in Battery use feature of Android (Settings > About Phone > Battery > Battery Use). Once you’ve identified where the leak is coming from you can kill the apps or processes (as long as their not needed) using a program such as TasKiller or Advanced Task Killer.

Beware when using third-party battery management apps, such as JuiceDefender or Power Manager. These tools can effectively identify where power is being used, but leave them running and you’ll discover that these programs can actually be a real drain on battery life themselves.

Disable Always-On Mobile Data

Your phone generally doesn’t always have to be connected to the internet, so having the data connection ‘always on’, isn’t necessary. You can save battery by turning it off from Settings> Wireless & networks > Mobile networks > Enable always-on mobile data. Note, that turning this off shouldn’t interfere with you receiving push Gmail notifications or even with using Google Talk.

Turn off WiFi & Bluetooth

WiFi and Bluetooth are two classic battery-suckers. Most of the time you won’t be using either of them, so make sure both are switched off when not needed. Both can be deactivated from Settings > Wireless & networks.

Turn down screen brightness

Many newer incarnations of Android include a setting to automatically adjust the screen’s brightness to save battery. Ensure this is activated from Settings > Sound & display > Brightness. Alternatively, you can manually lower the constant brightness of your screen. Aim for the lowest brightness increment you can before it becomes uncomfortable.

Change the screen timeout period

Having the screen timeout period set at more than one minute can really take it out of your phone’s battery. Reduce this period to around 30 seconds and you’ll save precious energy. The time period can be defined in Settings > Screen & display > Screen timeout.

Search with Black Google Mobile

If you use Google a lot on your phone then here’s one to bookmark in your browser: Black Google Mobile. Use this dark version of google and you’ll save battery and bandwidth on your mobile phone. The black background requires less power to display than Google’s traditional white search engine. See page 15 of this document for more on the science behind this.

Limit the use of certain apps

Google co-founder Larry Page has blamed apps for the poor battery performance of Android phones. It’s a harsh reality that certain kinds of Android software are very resource-hungry. Where possible, try limiting your use of location-aware apps (e.g. Google Maps, FourSquare) or streaming apps (e.g., YouTube, Last.fm). You should also avoid live wallpapers. They might look pretty, but they will soon suck your cell dry.

Whether you like it or not, DOC files are a standard for sharing documents online these days. The problem comes when someone emails you a DOC file and you don’t have Microsoft Office installed on that computer. Don’t worry: even if you don’t have Word on your system, there are other ways to open DOC files without Word - and all three of them for free:

1. Google Docs

Google’s online suite not only creates and saves documents as DOC, but also works with DOC files imported from your hard drive. So if you ever find yourself with a DOC file on a Word-less computer, head to Google Docs in a web browser and click the Upload button. You’ll be able to import files from your hard drive, up to 1024 MB - 500 KB per DOC file.

2. Microsoft Office Word Viewer

This handy app lets you view and print DOC files with ease. Microsoft Office Word Viewer has no editing functions at all, but works with documents created with all versions of Microsoft Word, including the latest format DOCX. If you really need to edit the text, you can always use the trick of copying and pasting it into another application.

3. Abiword

This light word processor doesn’t have as many options and tools as Microsoft Word, but works perfectly fine as document editor. Abiword works with DOC files - as well as other formats- and can be easily extended in functionality with plug-ins. There’s even a portable version in case you don’t want to install extra software on the computer.

[Via OnSoftware FR]

A while ago I wrote a tutorial about how to create a tilt-shift effect with Photoshop. It was quite simple - as simple as a Photoshop tutorial can get - and the results were very eye-catching. But today I found an online application that can achieve the same effect in a much easier way: TiltShiftMaker.

With TiltShiftMaker you can create awesome tilt-shift effects in under five minutes, without the hassle of having to deal with a big photo editor like Photoshop. All you need to do is load the image from your hard drive - or point to its URL if it’s online - and adjust the focus size. There are also a few advanced settings to fine tune the result, which you’ll find explained at the bottom of the page.

TiltShift includes hints and tips on how to create better tilt-shift effects, as well as links to the app’s Photobucket group album and Flickr group, so that you can share your best shots with other people.

I’m really starting to fall in love with Bing Maps. Last week, I was blown away by the preview of the slick new Street Slide feature in Microsoft’s online mapping tool. This week, Microsoft has added another great feature to Bing Maps - a taxi fare calculator.

The Taxi Fare Calculator is available now on the Bing Maps web site, appearing in the sidebar of the map page. All you need to do is select a city and  enter your start and destination points. The app will calculate how much the total fare will be, factoring in initial charges, waiting time fees and the price per mile for taxis in that particular city.

Luckily, my city is one of the 48 in the World covered by the Taxi Fare Calculator, and I’ve been finding the Bing app very useful. Results aren’t always completely accurate, but they’re not far out. It’s perfect for figuring out if it’s worth being lazy by not walking somewhere.

It’s a bit clunky to use at the moment, but Taxi Fare Calculator is the exactly the kind of simple, useful innovation that Bing Maps needs in order to compete with Google Maps. However, I would love to see the app added as a feature to the Bing Mobile app too, because it would really come into its own out on the sidewalk.

Adium is the Instant Messenger client of choice for hundreds of thousands of Mac users. It’s simple, lightweight, easy to use and supports almost any IM network. However, it is severely lacking in certain areas. The lack of webcam support is one of the most glaringly obvious but perhaps most basic of all is the lack of a contacts search tool.

A search function has been slated to be added in a future release of Adium but as yet, we’re still waiting. Therefore, the only way I’ve found of searching contacts is to improvise.

If you press CMD and the N key when Adium is active, a new chat window will open:

Start typing the name of the person you want to contact in the To: field and Adium will automatically predict the rest of the name of the contact.This is fine if your contacts all use their real names. However, if you’ve got hundreds of contacts with aliases such as “*STEVE25!***Helloall!***” it doesn’t make things much easier!

Let’s hope Adium introduce a decent powerful search tool that the client surely deserves.

Have you ever played a video that doesn’t quite have the audio in perfect sync? If so you’ll know its really annoying and makes a film or movie virtually unwatchable but thanks to VLC Player, there’s a very easy solution.

VLC Player is unusual in that it allows you to change the position of the audio over the video. All you need to do is press the G and F keys while the video is playing.

“G” moves the audio forward:

“F” delays audio:

An Audio delay indicator shows you by how many milliseconds you have moved the audio forward or back after pressing the keys.

However, using the keys only allows you to move the audio in increments of 50 miliseconds. If you want to move it more precisely, then you have to go into VLC’s Preferences.

In Preferences select Audio:

Change the box in the bottom left from Basic to All. Now you have access to the advanced preferences where you should see a value called Audio desynchronization compensation:

Simply change this to the exact value that you want (in this case 10) and the audio speed will change instantly.