October, 2011 - Softonic English

HootSuite announces deeper integration with LinkedIn

HootSuite, the popular social media manager that lets users manage their Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles from one main interface, announced recently that LinkedIn Company Pages and Groups will now be integrated into their service.

While these new additions outwardly benefit the companies who make use of LinkedIn, individual users will begin to notice some perks as well. If you’re already employed, you can keep up with company status updates and read relevant group discussions right from your HootSuite dashboard. Companies that use HootSuite for employee recruiting and HR marketing can also post job openings. Users who are job seekers can opt to follow specific companies of interest and will be able to view when new job openings are published, which is a definite plus in a competitive job market.

There’s also a strong probability that more LinkedIn features and functionality will be appearing on HootSuite in the future, because HootSuite is one of four charter members of LinkedIn’s new Certified Developer Program. For now, LinkedIn Groups integration on HootSuite is already available. LinkedIn Company Pages is currently in a private beta program.

HootSuite is available as a web app online, and also as an app for Android and iPhone.

Weekend Gaming: Ace of Spades

Ace of Spades is a free beta game that Call of Duty-style multiplayer shooting with Minecraft visuals and features. Currently in beta at version 0.60, despite missing a proper game interface, Ace of Spades is a surprisingly playable PC game.

To play quickly, simply download and install the game, then go to the Ace of Spades/play page, choose a server and the game should launch. You can only change your user name by opening the game’s folder (click Windows Start button, then All Programs, then Ace of Spades), opening the Configuration file, then replacing the word ‘DEUCE‘ with your chosen word and saving. There are a ton of other hints, tips and importantly controls at the Ace of Spades Wiki.

Environments vary, from randomly spawned worlds, to ones designed by players. All can be mined and built on during battle, which makes for some interesting ideas. The map I played above was two bases separated by an enormous plateau, that had tunnels and chasms carved through it, with fighting taking place all over the place. It’s really compelling and I highly recommend it. You’ll be hard pushed to find something this good for free!

Gameloft price drop in Columbus Day sale

Had Columbus not bumped into the Americas about 500 years ago the world would be a very different place. For starters, Gameloft wouldn’t be running a fantastic sale on some their best iOS games this weekend.

To celebrate Columbus Day weekend, Gameloft is giving you the chance to discover some of its top premium titles for just 99 cents each. Games included in this promotion include Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus, 9mm, Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden, Eternal Legacy, and (aptly), The Settlers (pictured above).

Visit the Gameloft blog to find out more about the deals on these pioneering games.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

We’d like to add our words to the many expressions of sorrow following the death of Steve Jobs earlier today. His impact on the computer industry and tech world was huge. He will be missed.

Swap emotional baggage for a song!

Do you ever feel the need to get something off your chest? Probably all the time, right? The problem with letting off steam on Facebook, Twitter or even Google+ is that all your friends are able to see (and potentially get offended by!) it. If you want your rant to be more anonymous, but still get read by someone, try Emotional Bag Check!

The concept behind Emotional Bag Check is simple – get negative thoughts off your chest and anonymously throw them out onto the internet. At some point, another user will come to the site and have the opportunity to read what you’ve written. They can then recommend a song in Grooveshark in order to lift your spirits. They can even send a little inspirational message to go along with it. Emotional Bag Check will email you the song and message you were given. While the creator of Emotional Bag Check is not personally affiliated with Grooveshark, this is most certainly a creative way to use its API to spread a little happiness across the internet.

Obviously, the system can be abused. Users can send ridiculous songs that are completely irrelevant to the emotional baggage in question. And peoples’ messages can be absolutely mean-spirited. Developer Robyn Overstreet has noted in her FAQ that she has some measures in place to combat message trolls, but the risks still remain. For what it’s worth, I put in a test message with a real piece of emotional baggage and received two really heartfelt messages in response (as well as one very dubious song suggestion, for those keeping score). Success?

Overall, as a simple way to anonymously rant out your negative feelings, Emotional Bag Check is a pretty neat concept. Plus, it’s hard to knock the opportunity to find a new favorite song in the process.

More weapons and goodies added to Infinity Blade

We didn’t see the iPhone 5 yesterday, but if you were watching Apple’s ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event closely then you will have witnessed an awesome demo of the upcoming Infinity Blade 2. Epic Games’ stunning-looking new slasher isn’t out until December 1st, but to keep you going until then the developer has released an update to the current Infinity Blade.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHE6IYKhIUE[/youtube]

Version 1.4 of Infinity Blade includes Content Pack 4, which adds a whole bunch of new rings, swords, shields and helmets. You’ll need them too, because the new “fierce and deadly” RookBane enemy is not someone you want to tackle unprepared!

Let’s Talk iOS 5 and not be impressed

Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” keynote is over and CEO Tim Cook (with friends) talked about the new roll-out of products and features.

But with all the hype around the next new iPhone – which is actually the iPhone 4S and not the iPhone 5 – did anything really amazing come out of it for users?

Our Mobile Lead Expert James Thornton already talked about how to get many of the features of iOS 5 through different apps, but since iOS 5 presents a unified package, there are something things worth noting.

Continue reading “Let’s Talk iOS 5 and not be impressed”

The best simple Mac video converters

If you want to convert audio or video files for different devices without any fuss, these two apps make the process as painless as I can imagine:

Media Converter

A personal favorite, Media Converter is just an empty window into which you drag the files you want to convert. There’s a list of conversion profiles to choose from, naming most of the devices you’re likely to be converting for, so there’s no need for any technical knowledge. I especially like that the deeper settings are available in the app and even more device profiles can be easily downloaded to it from the developer’s website. Media Converter is undemanding and beaitifully easy to use.

Smart Converter

Really popular on the Mac App Store, Smart Converter is possibly even easier to use than Media Converter. It’s single paned drag and drop interface has a row of popular device buttons, and you just have to click on the one you want to get a video converted for it. It really is conversion for absolute beginners! The drawback when compared to Media Converter is that there isn’t anything more complex in the background, so if you do want to customize the settings.. we you can’t so try not to!

These are the best free simple video converters I’ve used on Macs: have you found anything better?

Mobilize 2011 Wrap-up

September 26 and 27 brought Mobilize 2011 presented by GigaOM, to San Francisco where big names in the evolving mobile market came together to talk about the near future of mobile.

Every developer, publisher, and company arrived with ideas of where the mobile market would be heading in 2012 and years beyond. Thoughts about the migration of users to smartphones and the rise of HTML 5 were big topics of discussion.

During many of the sessions I attended, speakers discussed their opinions of the landscape of the mobile environment and how they were experimenting with the influx of new users across Android and iOS.

Here’s a little bit of what I learned during the two day event.

Continue reading “Mobilize 2011 Wrap-up”