Month: August 2010

Until Thursday you can get a full version of iSkysoft’s FLV video converter simply by registering your email with them. Go to their website, and they’ll send you a registration code.

Why would you want to convert FLV files? They’re probably the most common video files on the web, but many devices, like iPods, don’t run them. iSkysoft FLV converter makes it easy to convert videos you download from the web into most common video formats, like MOV, MP4, WMV and MKV. You can also change the resolution, to optimize your video for whatever screen you want to watch it on. It lets you rip the audio from videos and save it in MP3, M4A or WMA too.

With a ton of video converters out there, iSkysoft’s FLV video converter isn’t bad at all so grab it while it’s free!

Grooveshark, the amazing online music sharing service, has finally been approved by Apple and is now available to download from the AppStore. After allowing the release of apps such as Spotify, Rdio or Pandora, letting the last one of the gang in was only a question of time.

The best thing about the Grooveshark app is that you can test it free for 30 days – even if you don’t have a VIP account. All you need is to log in to the service with your current Grooveshark account (or create one on the spot) and start enjoying mobile music streaming anywhere. After the trial period is over, having a VIP user will be a requisite to continue using the app.

Grooveshark works great on the iPhone. The app is neatly designed and really easy to use. The main screen is Grooveshark’s search engine, where you can start typing your favorite bands and songs right away. At the bottom you have buttons for Favorites, Playlists and Queue, all pretty self-explanatory. The currently playing song screen features a few playback controls, as well as buttons to mark the song as Favorite and turn the Grooveshark radio on or off.

There are many interesting features in Grooveshark, such as being able to make a song available when you’re offline and having a link to buy a specific song directly from iTunes. All of these contribute to make Grooveshark a serious competitor to other similar apps, at a more competitive price (just $3/month for a VIP account) and without the territorial restrictions of Spotify or Pandora, for example. On the downside, Grooveshark doesn’t support multitasking yet, but apparently they’re working on implementing it really soon.

The only question left is then which of all mobile streaming music apps has the best catalog. For me, this is just a question of each user’s musical taste. Mine’s pretty standard, so I’ll probably be happy with Grooveshark. Other people with more refined taste, or who like not so popular bands, will prefer apps with a more extensive catalog. In any case, with Grooveshark being free for 30 days, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t download it and give it a go!

Artistic online community deviantArt may be well known for pretentious black and white portraits and drawings of emo-fairies, but there has always been some interesting stuff there and it’s a really well-made website. Adding to this is their new drawing app, Muro, a great artistic tool you can use in your browser.

You could spend hours creating pictures in Muro. It’s unlike most simple drawing tools, in that it has a range of cool brushes with interesting effects and also supports layers like Photoshop.

Muro has two main settings, basic and pro, which just flips between having layer options activated or not. Anyone can make a pretty nice image after just a little practice. Most importantly, it’s a great timewaster, as it’s relaxing, constructive, and can waste a hell of a lot of time if you’re not careful!

What’s even more interesting about Muro is that it’s been made in HTML 5,  so you can use it from things like Apple’s iPad too! Check it out at deviantArt.

Even with a fast internet connection and a great mobile device, some websites are just better viewed on a full size computer screen. That’s fine in theory, but what if you’re browsing with your phone and you see something interesting that you would prefer to read later on your computer? Well, Android/Chrome users are in luck. android2cloud is an application that you’ll need to install on your phone and your computer, on the phone in the form of a simple Android app, and on your computer in the form of a Chrome extension.

If anything catches your attention while you are browsing, just hit options > share > android2cloud. Next time you fire up Chrome, the article or page will be waiting for you to read. You’ll also see a little green Android logo on the Chrome interface after installing android2cloud – click on it, and the last article you pushed will appear.

Unfortunately, android2cloud has a major flaw – it only pushes the very last article you send to Chrome. That means that even though you might notice and send 4 articles, when you open Chrome, only the last article will appear. Presumably the developer knows this and is working on the problem (it’s mentioned in the comments section of his website) and a solution will be forthcoming. When it is, android2cloud will be a formidable Android app.

As a recent convert to the joys of smartphones, I keep a close eye on the top Android news. I was pretty surprised to read two pieces of scary news in a single day recently. Over in the UK, veteran broadcasters the BBC have apparently created their own malicious smartphone app to see how easy it would be to track users and steal data. It was deliberately a very simple code masquerading as a game and, unfortunately for us, it worked pretty well.

Meanwhile on the other side of the old continent, Kaspersky Labs claims to have discovered the first Trojan specifically targeted at Android in Russia. The malicious code is apparently disguised as a media player and, once downloaded, sends text messages to a premium number without the owner’s knowledge.

Even though we always take virus warnings from anti-virus manufactures with a pinch of salt, the concept of new risks for smartphones isn’t surprising – if there’s a new device out there that hasn’t been infected with something nasty, it’s just a matter of time until it is. Even so, all you Android users out there need to be aware of two things in the midst of all this hysteria: firstly, anybody who was infected with the trojan installed the software willingly. Secondly- and most crucially –  they also had to give it explicit access to the features it misused.

Google, Android’s developer, reminds users that any software downloaded in their Market has built-in protection against this, in the form of a stopscreen that explains exactly what items an application from the Market will be able to access. Third-party apps don’t have that extra layer. Viruses suck, but I think that in this particular case, we can safely conclude that the infected users pretty much brought the problems on themselves. Being OnSoftware, however, we’re not going to leave the paranoid among you without any options. If you really do think you’re running a risk, check out Antivirus. We don’t though, so rest easy, responsible Android users, you’re safe!