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The App Store is filled with a plethora of journaling apps, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Every person is different and likes to record and share their thoughts in a different way. For every well-crafted, smartly designed app on the market, there is an individual sure to love it. Smart Journal is just such an app, offering a slick, attractive design, intuitive controls and a novel means of jotting down quick journal entries and even sharing them when you choose to. Designed for simplicity, the app opens quickly and requires no Web syncing to operate, a major … Read more

Basic photo editors are sometimes insufficient for some users' needs. CollageFactory Pro for Mac provides some specialized features for those working with photos, but at a price.

CollageFactory Pro for Mac can be used for free but it will place a watermark on all printed documents if you do so. The full version without restrictions may be purchased for $29.99. The program is sizable at more than 200MB, but downloaded and installed smoothly after we accepted a lengthy user agreement. The design works well and has a menu bar on the left side where you can click to load … Read more

With changes to tax law occurring on an annual basis, piled on top of changes in your personal life and income, it's hard to know exactly how much money you will owe or be owed on any given tax return. There are some tax refund calculators online, but they are not always up-to-date, and even when they are, they are not necessarily easy to use. So the TurboTax TaxCaster from Intuit is a pleasant surprise and one of the most effective ways to estimate your future liability or refund with the IRS. The app doesn't require any personal … Read more

Listening to the radio on the radio is a thing of the past. Apps like iHeartRadio and TuneIn have made it easy and downright enjoyable to listen via your smartphone or tablet. iRadio would probably like to be the mentioned in the same breath as those apps. However, its dismal performance makes it tough to even consider it a worthwhile alternative.

Once it's installed, the app is still fundamentally useless until you add all of iRadio's predetermined stations. When you try, you're greeted with a never-ending loading bar. Trying to load stations crashed the app twice during … Read more

If a mobile character gets popular, you can expect a running game with it to not be far behind. Angry Gran RadioActive Run drops mobile favorite Angry Gran into a side-scroller, trying to dodge radioactive elements. The game is a decent time-waster and a little addictive, but the out-of-control ads and difficulty suck the limited amount of fun out of it.

Accidental ads taps abound in this app, as ads are almost always bigger on the screen than the actual buttons you want to hit. The only place this isn't true is when you're actually playing the running … Read more

Are you breezing through the Sudoku game in your daily paper? This fun, free app gives you thousands of challenging Sudoku puzzles in the palm of your hand. Andoku Sudoku will keep you occupied with sliding difficultly, multiple play options and very fast performance.

Despite having approximately 5,000 different puzzles, the app only takes up about 2MB on your phone. It achieves that by having a very simple, clean layout that focuses strictly on the game. This light layout is still pleasing to the eye; you'll never have to search for the right buttons and you can examine … Read more

The iPhone has become a popular reading device for many of its millions of users. So, a good dictionary app is a must, especially if you also have installed newspaper, eBook, and blog reading apps. While there are paid as well as some free versions of many well-known dictionaries available in the app store, Dictionary Offline Free provides a number of options that are more than enough for most users. Easy to use and with clear instructions for how to download more dictionaries, save entries, and share them, Dictionary Offline Free is a great tool for anyone that needs to … Read more

Apple has released a new beta of iOS 6.1.3 for developers.

Dubbed iOS 6.1.3 beta 2, the update is supposed to fix a hole that can let someone gain access to your iPhone by sneaking past the lock screen. Through a small series of steps, including making an emergency call, a person could bypass the passcode in order to make phone calls, listen to voice mail, and check contact photos.

Apple acknowledged the bug last week. promised to squash it in a future iOS release. iOS 6.1.3 will fix that problem, the company said, … Read more

With the dominance of Facebook in the social-networking space, other players are trying to get in on the act, which is not a bad thing. It's good to have options, and competition keeps the major players in check. JustConnected tries to compete against Facebook, but its glitchy performance and lack of participants keep it from truly making a mark.

To use JustConnected, you'll need to sign up for an account, which you can do from the app itself. As with most social-networking services, it does require a bit of information, including your first and last name, birth date, … Read more