5.1

MP3 Cutter Joiner Free cuts your audio files into clips and joins them together with equal ease. You can use it to remove blank spaces, extract clips to use as ringtones and notifications, and even create quick homemade mash-ups. If a clip's too big, MP3 Cutter Joiner can cut it down to size. If you need to string a bunch of files together to play as one, it can do that, too. MP3 Cutter Joiner also converts audio files, individually or in batches, and applies various effects. It can join multiple files of different formats and bit rates, and … Read more

Suitable for basic image editing, Seashore for Mac offers some useful tools and options that will appeal to less experienced users. The program is free and performs as expected, but could really use a better looking and more user-friendly interface.

Upon startup there will be a small pop-up window where you can choose to create a new image or open an existing one. Here you can set up an image's width and height, resolution, and mode. There is an option to set a transparent background, too. After the program starts you will be greeted with a rather basic interface. … Read more

Now that Twitter is no longer blocking third-party apps, it's time to love your Twitter feed again, thanks to Carbon for Twitter. Carbon for Twitter adds all sorts of speed and style to your Twitter profile. It doesn't even sacrifice any of the features you love, in order to do it.

This app lets you view your Twitter profile, so you need to log in to Twitter to use it. It gives your Twitter a darker layout, which is so much easier on the eyes and on your gadget's battery. Carbon for Twitter seems to load new … Read more

When emptying a Mac's trash can, some items may be locked, which prevents removal. Trash It! for Mac is a basic program that forces the trash can to completely empty, but has no additional features and is not a useful program.

Trash It! for Mac is available as a free application. The program downloaded quickly, but there was no installer for the program. Instead of having one program that worked with all Mac OS X versions, the download included two separate folders, one for version 10.8 and one for earlier versions. There were no technical support or user … Read more

There are dozens of photo editing apps on the App Store, many of them free. But far too many of those free apps are lacking some of the basic functions that are needed for a photo editing app to be useful, or they have cluttered, hard-to-use interfaces. BeFunky Photo Editor has none of those issues, and combined with Facebook sharing, channels to view and share photos through the app, and much more, it is one of the better options on the App Store.

The BeFunky editor is a dual-purpose tool. The first role of the app is to connect you … Read more

When determining how space is divided on a hard drive, some, more visual users may want a way to have the information represented graphically, rather than in numbers. While simple and of limited overall use, GrandPerspective for Mac is a good option for those looking for a different way to analyze folder and hard drive space.

Download and installation of GrandPerspective for Mac completed easily, but it only contained a basic readme file with no dedicated instructions, which was a detriment due to the complex nature of the program and its interface. It was also unclear if technical support existed. … Read more

There are a ton of photo-editing apps out there, so it's hard to stand out among the crowd. Color Effects lets you add pops of color to your photos. While the app works as promised, the final results don't really knock our socks off.

Right away Color Effects greets you with ads. The app gives you the option of removing the ads, but you'll have to pay. From there, you're taken to a very plain menu with photo selection options: Photo from my Photo Library, Image Taken with Camera, and Photo from Facebook. We chose a … Read more

With Macs and MacBook Pros you get used to listening to audio from the built-in speakers, but what if you want better audio? For a quick, easy, and free solution try SoundSource. This app will allow you to use your external speakers without any hassle.

SoundSource enables you to switch your audio input and output sources with a single click. It's a free app and very quick to download. Once opened the app adds a menu-bar item, rather than an icon in the dock below. A small headphone icon will indicate when the app is working. The interface is … Read more

A recent CNET review of the Monoprice 9774 by Matt Moskovciak and Steve Guttenberg revealed that, beyond striking physical similarities, they sounded nearly identical to the more-expensive Energy Take Classic speaker system.

A recent lawsuit seems to bear out that Energy feels the same way.

So how similar are they? I acquired sets of both to take apart and compare the guts. Further, I enlisted the help of measurement wizard and speaker guru Brent Butterworth to measure the frequency response.

The results were very interesting.… Read more