2.1.0

Review: Focus attention on your pointer for presentations with Highlighter for Mac

When giving live or recorded computer presentations, the mouse pointer can be easily lost to viewers. Highlighter for Mac focuses attention on the pointer, but lacks any other features for presentation that would make it more useful to most users.

While it downloaded and started up without any problems, the program did lack technical support. Fortunately, Highlighter for Mac's basic purpose and operation made the lack of user instructions or tutorials moot. At startup, the only thing that happens is a red circle that follows the pointer around the screen, highlighting it for easier viewing. There were no options … Read more

Temple Run 2 1.0.1.2 Review

Passing time playing games with your smartphone or tablet requires applications that are quick to learn and fun. Temple Run's excellent graphics and easy-yet-satisfying gameplay make it a good option for casual gamers.

Temple Run comes as a free application, but payment is required for additional power-ups. Installation through the Google Play store completed quickly, and there were no log-ins required to play the game. The startup menu's graphics are well designed, as are those for the game, itself. The selection to start a new game was easy to find and well labeled. In terms of play, the … Read more

Strobe Light Review

Strobe Light is exactly as it sounds: a strobe light. For that reason alone, this review will be very simple. Turn on the app and it starts to flash. Not so rapidly as to give you a headache and not so slowly as to attract the attention of a nearby emergency vehicle, but as you would expect from a strobe light for a party or concert. That alone is a nice feature; it works well on both the iPad and iPhone and it doesn't drain your battery quite as rapidly as some flashlight apps that have strobe functions.

That … Read more

Pit your towers against an endless onslaught of troops in Fieldrunners 2

Fieldrunners 2 is the sequel to the megapopular Fieldrunners, which has occupied a spot high on the iOS App Store charts for months. The game is a perfect blend of casual and hard-core tower defense mechanics, designed to provide an overall highly engaging and satisfying experience for players who want a quick fix. Integrated with Game Center for both score keeping and matching, Fieldrunners 2 allows you to pit your defensive skills against the troops sent to take your city or battlefield.

The game mechanics, for anyone who has played a tower defense game, are very simple. Enemies rush your … Read more

Outrace enemies, dodge obstacles, and collect gold in this upgrade to the iOS classic

With more than 100 million downloads, Temple Run is one of the most successful mobile games of all time. So, there were big expectations for the sequel, released in early 2013 by Imangi Studios. Touted as a refinement and not a revamp of the classic formula, Temple Run 2 is sleeker, faster, and more attractive than its very popular older brother, all to great effect.

The game handles very much like the first. Your character runs automatically and you must swipe up, down, left and right to avoid obstacles and turn. You can move the iPad or iPhone to tilt … Read more

Kill Zombies in a strategic fashion with Stupid Zombies 2

Even though it may not have the same strategic flair as Plants and Zombies, the aspect of looking for the perfect aim and shoot in this app can serve just as well. Stupid Zombies 2 revives the same fun accuracy gaming experience of its predecessor, with more levels and upgraded gameplay.

The interface of Stupid Zombies 2 will look familiar to you. As for the game environment itself, you're given a shot gauge, the number of enemies to defeat, and a pause button. The primary objective of the game is to finish off all the zombies in a level … Read more

Get to know Instagram friends with InstaMessage

InstaMessage is a free social app that lets you privately chat with members of the popular Instagram image-sharing service in a text-message-style format. Its simple-to-use interface will have you getting to know the people behind the pictures in no time.

To begin with, you sign in to InstaMessage using your Instagram log-in information. There are four menu options, giving the choices to explore other user profiles, invite friends to chat using InstaMessage, access friends' Instagrams, and access your profile. We found a friend by exploring profiles that were in our location. After tapping the Chat button on his profile, we … Read more

Modify file attributes and icons with Types

Types is a small configuration application that lets you manage filenames, icons, and other file and folder properties. It also allows you to modify context menus. There are several user-supported language ports of Types, a nice feature.

Types installs quickly and has a very simple interface that lets you navigate to different folders and click on files or folders to examine their basic properties and modify them, or delete the files. The problem with Types is that it is very basic and offers limited functionality. There are other applications that give you more control and more options, but Types does … Read more

Powerpoint-generated PDFs to PPTX with ease

Converting PDF documents to easily editable formats requires passing the PDF file through a converter. There are quite a few PDF Converters on the market, some better than others, but there are few very good free applications for this purpose. Wondershare Software's PDF Converter Free is a stand-alone app that allows a PDF file to be converted to a Microsoft PowerPoint file that is fully editable.

PDF Converter Free only works with PowerPoint-formatted PPTX files (or fully compatible file formats from non-Microsoft presentation applications) that have been saved as PDFs. During the conversion from PDF to PPTX almost all … Read more

3Nity Media Player adds an easy-to-use GUI to MPlayer

With so many freeware media players to choose from, finding one that's best for your needs starts with features. Nearly all of the popular media players are great performers; what sets a given player apart from the competition? Is it the ability to play the most obscure file types, or numerous skins, or the best playlist manager? What 3Nity Media Player offers is an attractive, easy-to-use GUI for MPlayer, the open source media player, and MPUI, the tool that makes MPlayer a versatile Windows program. Like MPlayer, 3Nity is highly comprehensive, incorporating all the codecs and other moving parts … Read more