App Review: Office² Plus

Pros:

- Allows for you to integrate other Document holders like Google Docs, Dropbox, and Others.

- Sleek design and easy to use

- Also includes WorkBooks (spreadsheets) for data input

- Free unlike other documents creators out there

Cons:

- Crashes sometimes when trying to integrate with Dropbox or Google Docs

Price: Free

Rating: 4/5

Opinion: Great design; the perfect app for a business person who needs documents synced and ready to edit and go.

Bouncedown: iPod touch/iPhone App Review

Bouncedown is an app which is currently at the very top of the 'Top 25' Free Downloaded apps. Personally, I have no idea why Jagex have made it free though.

This app is great, It's very addicting and has already given me hours of fun when I would otherwise have been bored. There is a vast selection on which controls you use which is great because it means more users will get to play the way they are suited to.

Though there are not many cons, one has to be that there is no online leaderboard - I question why but hopefully there will be one in an update soon.

I can only tell you all, Get this app because it's so much fun! Maybe not absolutely everyones cup of tea, but I'm sure it isn't just me who finds this addicting! I've never had so much fun moving sideways on platforms that are moving upwards towards spikes. Once you set a high-score though - You just wanna beat it!

The User Interface is nice, and the design is very fun and suites the target audience - however I am one 16 year-old who looooves the design. The animated background featuring the blue blob character thing really sets it off and looks great!

Overall I think the app is great (as you can probably tell!), and I apologise for the vast amount of Exclamation Marks in this post - but the app deserved them ;]

Photoshop for the iPhone

Not the latest of news, but I had to make a video on this app! Photoshop comes to the iPhone/iPod, in fantastic fashion! The UI is superb and is really great to use - incredibly user-friendly. When using the app I had a go with all of the effects, and I have to say there isn't a single one that I don't like. The app works wonders in filling gaps that the iPhone probably should have included in the first place - such as Cropping, Rotating and Flipping.

So all in all, What do I think of Adobe's app? It's very good and I give it a 9.5/10. Check it out and you won't regret it, you can even upload the photos directly to your Adobe Account. Clearly don't expect the same as the computer photoshop, but for our favourite devices it really works wonders.

Please check out the video:

Thanks,

HavokHarr 

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iChat vs Adium - Fight!

For about two years now, there are always heated debates in the Chat sector of the Mac, debating if iChat or Adium is the best Mac Chatting client. I've used both Adium and iChat for an extensive amount of time, and I personally prefer iChat since it has a simplistic UI and I don't use the platforms it doesn't support anyways, so I don't have a problem with that. So, I've decided to make a few rounds of head to head competition on the major aspects of what is expected of a chat client. Then, at the end, I'll post comments from people who I've asked the preference of client.

Round 1 - Platform Support

iChat and Adium both support multiple chatting platforms, such as AIM, Jabber, MobileMe, and usually work fine. However, Adium supports almost 4 times more of what iChat supports, and it also works fine. What Adium supports that iChat doesn't:

• Yahoo! Messenger
• MySpace IM
• Facebook
• QQ
• LiveJournal
• ICQ
• Novell GroupWise
• MSN Messenger

Adium definitely is the winner in Round 1. iChat doesn't have a wide selection of different chat support, it only supports the basics.

Round 2 - User Interface

Now, here is where things get kind of tough. Adium has an OK basic UI, however you can fully customize it to whatever fits you. iChat has an amazing basic nice and bland UI, however you can't change the font, UI, or colors unless you use a 3rd party application, such as chax. However, the latest version of Chax is no longer an add-on, its an actual app. But it looks exactly like iChat and you can fully edit it. So who wins this one? Its really a tie because Adium's base UI is weaker than iChat's, but you can edit the UI completely and make it just like you want it. You can change fonts and order of how iChat's buddy list is sent by using Chax, but you can't change the actual UI like it's colors. You can change the format which is included in the actual iChat(meaning you can change format w/o Chax), to Bubbles, Boxes, or Compact. Round 2 is a tie between iChat and Adium.

Round 3 - What you think

I asked a few people of what they thought of iChat and what they thought of Adium and also asked them what the better client was. Here's what they Said:

TrueSongmedia answered Adium is better: "because it 1) is more stable ... 2) supports more protocols ... 3) looks better ... 4) can log/organize chats". He also went on to add "iChat is okay, but Apple should get a clue and use the libpurple library for IM instead of writing their own crappy one".

Jeff answered Adium because it had multiple platform support.

So, it looks like the majority of people prefer Adium because of the reasons I've stated in the blog post. It would be nice to see Apple make iChat more customizable, but seeing how pretty much every other Apple-made Application is nice and basic, I don't see that happening in the near future. But since I do LOVE the simplistic interface on iChat, I'll keep to iChat.

If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, I'm @Knunez.

App Review - Donut Games Bargain Bundle?

So this post is basically just to review 3 games that I recently downloaded, which 'Donut Games' are giving away for free from the App Store!

Rat on the Run is a game that allows you to control a Rat that goes from side to side. The aim of the game is to collect all the pieces of cheese, and to do this you can Jump, and choose which direction to go. However, the only ways of changing direction are to either hit a wall or walk into a stop-sign. At stop-signs, you can choose either Left, or right. There are numerous obstacles, and as the game goes on you will encounter even more difficult ones. Some of these are Fire, Spikes, and also some strange green ball-like object swinging from a platform! Hitting these will cause you to lose a life - unless of course you picked up armor, like the Helmets which are available, which lets you take one hit without being killed.
The game also includes an 'Arcade Play' mode, where you have a time-limit in which you must collect as much cheese as possible. This mode is okay, but personally I did not find it too fun - and i'll be honest, I hardly played the mode. One more thing I quite like about this app is that it has a 'bonus game' called 'Rat on a Scooter' in which you must bounce from platform to platform (on a scooter) to collect peanuts. This is actually quite fun, as you must power-up your jump just right.
Overall I probably wouldn't buy the game, but I enjoyed it and for free it is an absolute must-have!
 
The second game they are giving away for free is Spikey's Bounce-Around, in which you play as a spikey ball that sticks to walls, and you have to fling him in an attempt to Smash jars containing butterflies - thus saving the Butterflies. I found this game incredibly fun, and have done many of the levels. They aren't too hard, but some take a while to get done. You have a certain amount of shots in order to clear a route so that the jars can fall down to the ground and smash. Simple, yet fun. As you progress through the levels you are given more and more challenging levels - and more obstacles are included such as Bouncy walls, Wasps (which you must try your best to avoid), and spikey balls which hover and - on hitting them - you will fail the level.
I enjoyed this game and would recommend it. For free it's definetly worth getting, and i'd probably even pay money for it!

The third and final game that I will review is Cows in Space. This game is quite simple, and is similar to 'Spikey's bounce around', in that you have to fire things around. However in this game, the aim is to knock star-balls into the cows (that are aimlessly floating around space) in order to send them back to earth. I haven't played it much, but I must say that the simplicity of it actually adds to the fun - and it's stupidly addicting. There is not much to do in the game though, except just the levels.
I think the game is good and i'd recommend you definetly download it whilst its free. If it wasn't free i'd probably buy it - but only if it was a small pricing (of around £1).

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