shapes

Label Spirit Professional offers to help design custom labels for any purpose. With a simple layout and a fantastic level of control, this is a great program to meet shipping needs.

We were struck by how much this program's interface looked like a boring graphic design program with its menus of design options, but immediately felt at home while working through its helpful wizard. We surfed through the program's list of labels and were pleased to find practically every brand and style imaginable. The word-processing tool to input addresses was nothing outstanding, but very functional. The program really … Read more

Typing on the iPhone/iPod Touch's keyboard can be arduous. This is never more evident than when trying to bang out messages in several instant-messaging conversations at once. Shape Services, the makers of the popular IM+ instant-messaging app ($9.99 App Store link), have realized this, and are soon rolling out a new version of the app that includes speech-to-text, albeit at a price.

Taking advantage of Apple's recently released in-app payment system, 99 cents a month gets you the feature, meaning that the annual cost of continuing to use it is about $12 a year. Not bad … Read more

Sure Cuts A Lot for Windows is a program that you can with Cricut Personal and Cricut Expression die cut machines to cut shapes and letters made with True Type fonts.

Sure Cuts A Lot for Windows has a stylish interface that features a self-healing mat as the background. We entered some sample text into the program and found that you can change the text size by clicking and dragging one of the corners of the bounding box, as you can with most page-layout and shape-drawing programs. Sure Cuts A Lot for Windows has some common shapes built into the … Read more

At first glance, Smart Diary seems similar to many other planners, with various calendar views and the ability to set tasks. What really sets Smart Diary apart is its diary feature, which is unlike anything we've seen before in this sort of program.

The program's interface is attractive and intuitive, with a surprisingly sleek calendar design. It's easy to do all the basics, like adding events and tasks, scheduling reminders, printing schedules, and so on. Everything is neatly arranged with tabs and drop-down menus, allowing users to quickly find the functions they want. What really impressed us … Read more

Shape Collage sets itself apart from the competition thanks to its lack of cute add-ons, and thanks to professional results. Users may never look back because this program is easy to use and looks so good.

At first glance, the program's interface is slightly confusing, with a lot of white space and few command buttons. The biggest hurdle is that there is no guidance on how to download photos and make a collage. However, with a glance at the Help file and some random toying around, we felt instantly at home here. Most photo collage programs we've tested … Read more

Want to annoy the nicotine addiction out of your smoking friend or family member? A battery-operated gadget named the "Screaming Coughing Ashtray" might just do it.

Though it's sold as a "fun" way to help people quit smoking, the gift giver might be the only one laughing. The $11 lung-shaped ashtray not only reminds smokers which body part is most adversely affect by smoking, but whenever a cigarette sits in it, it starts coughing and screaming.

Though the annoying ashtray could simply be thrown out a window, those who are sincerely trying to quit smoking … Read more

If you've seen the latest Knight Rider series recently, you may have noticed that K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Three Thousand) embraces a type of nano technology that lets its outer shell change colors and temporarily morph into other car forms. How cool is that? If BMW has its way, that part of the reel world would be made real.

The carmaker's GINA Light Visionary Model, a two-seater concept car, wears a flexible, virtually seamless skin made of a textile fabric and stretched over a metal wire structure enforced with carbon fiber. This gives the owner the … Read more

Every now and then, I come across some stories that make me cringe. Unfortunately, this is one such story. The New York Times is reporting today that Target made itself look like a fool because of the idiocy of its public relations arm.

According to the Times, a blog about the impact of marketing on children called Shaping Youth found issue with Target's latest ad campaign that showed a woman behind Target's logo. And while the site's founder Amy Jussel didn't necessarily find fault in the depiction of the woman, she was perturbed by Target's decision to place the bull's-eye directly over the woman's crotch.

Upon sending an email message to Target to get an explanation for the ad, the major retailer said that it was "unable to respond to [her] inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets."

Wow. What a bunch of clowns.… Read more

Last year about this time, several independent Mac software developers teamed up to put together a bundle of nine award-winning Mac apps for the vastly reduced price of $49--with 25 percent of the purchase price donated to the charity of your choice (chosen from a list). The whole thing took place at a very well-designed site called MacHeist.com and more than 16,000 users snapped up the limited time offer--it was really a great deal! The fun part about the offer was that the developers of MacHeist made it into a kind of scavenger hunt by letting users search … Read more