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Smartphones , Tablets , Computers , laptop and news on every other gadget

The alphabet is the core of the English language. Reading and writing start with knowing each and every letter, how they sound, and the words that they’re associated with. This is why it is so important to teach the alphabet to our children at an early age. Any App that helps do that, and keeps my 5 year old twins interested at the same time catches my attention. AlpaTots does just that. With the interactive activities attached to each letter, and the alphabet sing along, this is a great App to help in the learning process.

Keep It Interesting

Keeping a child’s attention is one of the hardest things to do. My children (they’re 5 years old) have the attention span of a gnat. They don’t stay tuned in to any one thing very long. Even TV doesn’t put them in a trance like it does some other children. AlphaTots manages to keep their attention for a long period of time; sometimes as long as an hour. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is an accomplishment for my children believe me. The way this App does it is by offering so many different “things to do” within it.  Each letter has an activity attached to it. This means that there are 26 different “things” for my children to do which keeps them entertained. Each activity is associated with the particular word that they chose to represent that letter. For example, U is represented by the word “unlock”. For this they show a chest and tell the children to unlock the chest. To do this they have to line up the shapes in three separate wheels (similar to a slot machine). This keeps them doing something fun, and also helps with shape identification and matching! This isn’t a new concept within children’s learning Apps, but the simplicity and effectiveness is second to none.

The ease of use is found throughout the App. The letters are easy to navigate to from the home screen. Advancing to the next letter after completing the activity is intuitive and simple, and there are words of praise throughout the entire process.

The Alphabet Song

When I was a little kid, no one thing helped me learn my letters more than the alphabet song, as I’m sure it has helped millions of others. Knowing this, AlphaTots included the alphabet song into the App. Tapping on the music notes in the lower right hand corner of the screen brings up a new screen that not only plays the alphabet song, but also displays the letters as it sings it to your child. My children can sing the song word for word, but they still enjoy this feature of the App and play the song at least once every time they are using the App.

The Bottom Line

You can’t go wrong with a children’s App that not only teaches your child the alphabet, but helps them enjoy the learning process while they’re doing it. This App will help your child learn their ABC’s very, very quickly.

You can get AlphaTots for the iPad from the iTunes store for $1.99 here:
You can get AlphaTots for the iPhone from the iTunes store for $.99 here:

There have been a few reports going around lately about people having problems with battery life after upgrading to iOS 5 or to the new iPhone 4s. While I haven’t had any real issues myself with the iPhone 4s, it’s great to know whether or not if an App has run a muck and is chewing up system resources. One sign of this is if your iPhone or other iDevice is all of a sudden warm to the touch. This usually means that the processor is working overtime. When that happens you can try things like quitting some of the Apps running in the background or a simple reboot of the device. However, I would like to do more than just solve this problem temporarily, I’d like to know which app in particular is causing the problem?

System Activity Monitor shows what’s going on in real-time

This App is similar to the Mac OS Activity Monitor in that it shows you in real time which apps or processes are running and more importantly which ones are running with high amounts of processor time. If you’re not playing a game or doing something else that would task the processor then your device should be running with the majority of the processor count in “idle.” If it’s not, you can quickly identify which App or process is causing a problem.

I highly recommend System Activity Monitor as a troubleshooting tool!

You can get System Activity Monitor for $0.99 here from the 

I’m happy to announce an important update to my Learn the Adobe Creative Suite with Terry White App. Most importantly this update addresses a video playback bug introduced in iOS 5 that prevented you from being able to see the video and only hearing the audio. This update also adds:

• Retina Display Graphics
• A new tab bar interface
• Swiping to the left and right from the episode detail page will go to the next or previous episode
• UI enhancements
• Faster show loading
• Minor bug fixes

Thanks for your patience and support! You can get the App as a free update if you already have it or for $1.99 here from the 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Tapper World Tour HD Review: A high-speed challenge to keep the local watering hole running smoothly. Imagine yourself as a lone bartender with a room full of demanding patrons. Your job is to keep them happy by sliding a beverage down the bar for each of them. You’ve got multiple stations to manage, as well as empties and tips to pick up. The game starts off relatively easy, a few patrons here, a couple over there. But it quickly gets to be nearly as fast-paced as any real-world hot spot would be. You’ve got to be quick and be able to see things coming ahead of time while you jump between stations and race to pick up empties and tips. On top of needing to see things almost before they happen, the game gets more complicated as you go along. Patrons have special requests, they become more demanding.

Tapper World Tour HD Review: Serving Up a Roomful of Fun

Andy Warhol had a profound influence on the artistic world in the 1960s and 1970s. Several decades later, his work is still admired, copied and transformed. Good graphic editors can turn any photo into the iconic color-block style Andy Warhol used in his most famous paintings, but it can be hard to find the right [...]

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Create an Andy Warhol Style Image from a Photograph

For those who used Microsoft Office Word to create their documents, the thesaurus was a life saver when trying to find the right word. When switching to OpenOffice Writer, the thesaurus isn’t exactly the easiest feature to find. For quite a while, I assumed this was just one of the features Writer didn’t have. However, [...]

Using the OpenOffice Writer Thesaurus

There are many free plugins that give extra features to Windows Media Center. Using these plugins, you can watch videos, listen to music and view other media that isn’t typically available in Windows Media Center. There are also plugins that help you to organize your media library in Windows Media Center. These are some of [...]

Modern digital cameras take very big pictures. Sure, these pictures are alive with detail and striking colors, but they must be resized for Web use. Unfortunately, resizing often results in lost picture quality. BigImg.it allows photo lovers to keep their big-photo’s quality, even when the photo is displayed in appropriate Web dimensions. The service creates [...]

Most people think of filters in email programs as ways to curb spam, but filters can also be used to help you manage other kinds of email messages as well; for example, say you get a lot of messages from your brother. You could set up a filter to automatically put all messages from him [...]

Apple recently changed the terms of service agreement with app makers to where apps like Kindle can no longer allow in-app purchase. This makes the process of buying an e-book more hassle then necessary. You have to go to Amazon, find a book, choose the right device to send the book, then open the Kindle [...]

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Android App Log is the right destination to check for android application reviews game reviews and other android OS related news

The Jelly Bean has not yet arrived and we have started listening about the rumors of the next Android OS, possibly the Android’s OS will be named Key Lime Pie according to a trusted source of The Verge. Their blog said its the same source which confirmed the name Jelly Bean last year.

With Ice Cream sandwitch on just about a percentage of devices and Jelly Bean still behind the curtains, the rumors of Key Lime Pie are expected to take a long way before they become a part of your android experience, most probably Q4 2013.

There isn’t much to talk about the Key Lime Pie right now but we hope to get some sneak peek at the Jelly Bean android 5.0 anytime soon.

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Android App Log is the right destination to check for android application reviews game reviews and other android OS related news

Sales figures for smartphones reached record highs this Christmas as thousands of people unwrapped their new mobile devices, mainly Apple iPhones and handsets running Google’s Android operating system. Analytics company Flurry has released a variety of statistics detailing just how many of Britain’s consumers received a mobile phone or tablet over the festive season, with the main figure landing at over 500,000. Collectively the British public downloaded an unbelievable 4 million apps on Christmas Day alone, whilst the total number of apps downloaded on Apple and Android surged 125% to 242 million worldwide. That’s more than double the figures either operating system has ever achieved on a single day.

Mobile phone consultancy Distimo has also contributed to the festive figures, reporting that the UK’s favourite apps to download this December include popular free downloads such as Skype, Facebook, BBC iPlayer, and the addictive Angry Birds game. Popular from iTunes was the free 12 Days of Christmas app, which offered iPhone owners free music, videos, and even books for each day leading up to Christmas itself. It comes as no surprise that the most popular apps don’t cost a penny: after spending however much on the phone itself, owners and parents probably didn’t want to part with any more cash!

Flurry staff members Peter Farago has commented on the huge surge in smartphone sales this Christmas; “This year was insane,” he said, “We’ve seen holiday spikes like this in the last few Christmases. But the spike keeps getting bigger. The surprise was that the pop was so big, which means there has been a pent-up demand.” This bears an interesting implication; it suggests that people are finding it more difficult to justify spending money on an expensive smartphone unless it is a special occasion, waiting until Christmas to make that luxurious purchase.

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Android App Log is the right destination to check for android application reviews game reviews and other android OS related news

Puzzle games have always been a part and parcel of my day, whether its waiting for an appointment with doctor in a long queue or refreshing my mind from the hectic work load. If you too are found of collecting new and challenging puzzle games, let’s have a look at Bubble Breaker Advanced. The name itself speaks a lot about the game, but if you haven’t played a similar game earlier, you will need to be fast and observant.

The game is pretty straight forward; you start with a new game where you see bubbles of 5 different colors laid randomly on your screen. The objective is to pop similar colored bubbles which are grouped together. You will be able to pop two or more bubbles grouped adjacent to each other either horizontally or vertically but no diagonal moves will be allowed and also none of the solo bubbles can be popped. You don’t race against the clock but you do earn points for each pop.  The more the number of bubbles popped in one tap the higher you score per bubble.  You can see and compare how much you will score with a specific group of bubbles by single tapping on it. But there’s another catch in the game, you also need to break as many bubbles as possible using your strategies before you are left with no choices and ultimately come to the end of the game.

Additionally you can change the look and feel of your play area by customizing your bubbles shapes with square, circle, hearts and so on. The settings section will also give you control over adjusting the background color and score color to match the theme, play environment or mood.

The concept of the game is fun to play for every age group and you will come back for more challenges over and over again to beat your previous highscore and set a new record for yourself.  The controls fulfill the conditions of easy usage and quick operation making it a decent enough game that can be played from short intervals to irritating long queues. The game looks very colorful with bubbles of 5 different colors and you will enjoy the customized look of your choice. Though we were a little disappointed with the absence of social tools like open feint and Facebook share but if you play for the fun of it, Bubble Breaker Advanced will most probably not disappoint the puzzle game lovers .

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Android App Log is the right destination to check for android application reviews game reviews and other android OS related news

The Android OS has earned a huge fan base in the last few years. Its growing popularity due to its open nature, availability from a multitude of top level hardware manufacturers, and increasing number of apps available on the android market have given Android a surge of activations per day.  At the same time Android has been receiving the worst kind of compliments for its popularity; malware developers have increasingly targeted Android devices by uploading Trojan-horse apps to the Android Market which is well known for its less rigorous certification model that permits software developers to release app anonymously, without inspections.  Lack of app certification process has arguably been a big reason for the increasing volume of malware like viruses and Trojans on Android platform. But if you concerned about the security of your device against such malware apps and want to keep a track of applications that may damage your android device, its high time to choose the right malware defending app.

VirusFighter is one such app you can find on the android market. The initial setup is very easy and you do not require more than a couple of taps before you get started with it. VirusFighter aims at scanning the apps installed on your device for any traces of malware. While VirusFighter runs in the background it scans every app that is installed from the android market or through a package file right away. VirusFighter then notifies you whether the installed app/game is safe to be used on your device or not, with any issues affecting your secuity.  You can also scan all your applications and SD data that has been existing on your android device prior to installation of VirusFighter and ensure whether these do not compromise the security of the device and data within.

As VirusFighter is specifically meant for protecting you against malware based apps, it only consumes resources when any activity related to app installation or update is initialized, while stays idle the rest of the time. Each time an app is installed; VirusFighter scans it and notifies you through the android’s notification bar and takes you to the results when tapping on the notification.

VirusFighter does not consume as many resources as a standard anti-virus application including higher functionality does, basically because the main source of threats-third party apps are always scanned leaving aside the rest of the non-harmful processes. Thus the app will not slow down your device during general usage like playing games, surfing the web, or navigating through the OS.

Over a period of 7 days we installed over 40 new and unknown applications for test and scanned existing apps on SD card but didn’t find any severe threats from most of them. The exploits we found were the package files of rooting apps like visionary and z4root which are actually not malware but the way they use device permissions is somewhere close to what virus try to do.  VirusFighter warns you and gives you a choice to selectively remove the files that could be a threat to your device or all at once.  But you never know you could fall victim of a new malware app that sounds very appealing say a 3D shooter game on the android market which spy’s your private details like texts, call log, passwords or any other information without your knowledge. VirusFighter does a great job and offers regular updates to its anti-virus database. Though its effectiveness and usefulness with relatively new apps and rooted devices is still a question.

Overall VirusFighter is great tool to protect you android phone or tablet against any kind of Trojans, viruses, spyware, key-loggers and other types of malware in very easy way while also not affecting the performance of your device.

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Android App Log is the right destination to check for android application reviews game reviews and other android OS related news

Being an active trader it is very essential to keep up with updates of each rise and fall in the stock market. But this gets really cumbersome when you are stuck in a traffic jam in the peak hours of your trading time. Do find it really difficult to stay away from your desktop stock monitoring tool? If yes then Chaikin Power Tools would ease a lot of your burden.  Chaikin Power Tools is a stock monitoring solution built specially for smartphones. After its success on the iOS platform, Chaikin has finally made its way to Android.

Apart from being a portable solution which can be easily carried anywhere in your pocket to keep a track of all your investments Chaikin Power Tools also gives you tips to trade from the comfort of your Android device. Chaikin Power Tools turns your Android device into a real time stock update machine.

Fire up the app, add your stock symbols and you are ready use the app without any hassles of registration or sign-ins. Stock symbols are easy to add as they offer suggestions for your keywords based on symbol and name of company. Chaikin Power Tools has been specifically designed keeping the mobile users in mind, hence it does not overload you with useless content occupying your precious  screen estate.  The homescreen is where you can see a list of all your stocks with real time updates of price and change. So unless you want a detailed view of each stock symbol its pretty easy to keep a track of upto 20 stocks of your choice.

Tapping on any stock symbol takes you to its detailed view where you can quickly analyse its performance by having a look at the the gauge which has the reactions displayed in three ways- Red is bearish, yellow is neutral and green is bullish. The gauge also gives information on financial metrics, earnings performance, price/volume activity and expert opinions. The chart section shows up the price vs time graph that just needs a quick glance to estimate the performance once you are an expert. The graph can switched to a 6 month view from the default intra-day view to get the more insights. Furthermore you have the company’s short description, fundamental(including Mkt. Cap., Revenue, P/E and Yeild), performance, earnings report and ratios to understand the company in a better way. While surfing any section or stock within the app you will always be able to see updates on some of the major stock market indices on the bar at the bottom of the screen. You can optionally order research directly from the app using the order research button which takes you to Chaikin Power Tools website for more information.

Overall the app is really straight forward and simple, navigating through the app was simple enough and didn’t take us long before you could understand various elements in the app. If you are one, who doesn’t want to pull out their laptop to get latest updates on stocks, Chaikin Power Tools is a reliable partner that comes for Free on the Android Market.

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