OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows

ommwriter
I have a thing for full-screen text editing. I use WriteMonkey for my creative writing needs, and VIM in a full-screen PuTTY session for my Web development work. That being the case, I'm all over the monospace, dark-background, focused editing scene.

OmmWriter attempts to take that aesthetic and make it somehow more spiritual, with three picturesque backgrounds and ambient background audio tracks (there are seven of each in the paid version).

I'm of two minds about this app. On the one hand, yes, it's beautiful. But if you want music as a background to your writing, why not pick your own soundtrack with Winamp or Foobar2000 running in the background?

OmmWriter also offers three keyboard-clicking sounds, which are kind of nice. None of these features are groundbreaking, really. OmmWriter could be seen as a way to gently ease into the world of distraction-free writing -- in case something like WriteMonkey's dark background is just too oppressive for you.

After the fold you can see a video showcasing several of OmmWriter's features and creative soundscapes.

Continue reading OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows

OmmWriter brings its clean, calm writing interface to Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/ommwriter-brings-its-clean-calm-writing-interface-to-windows/

TERADATA QUANTUM SATYAM COMPUTER SERVICES IMATION IKON OFFICE SOLUTIONS HEWLETTPACKARD HYPERCOM

Elephant Quest is an addictive, deep platformer

elephantquest
When someone tells me about a "platformer", my first thought is that it's probably a simple game that mainly revolves around running and jumping around, with a minimal plot. [Play a Zelda game! -Ed]

Elephant Quest is one platformer that managed to prove me completely wrong. Yes, you do run and jump around, and you also shoot at stuff. But the game has much, much more going for it.

Basically, as you run, jump and shoot, you gain experience points and level up. Hitting Space brings you into an interface where you can convert your experience points into Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Dexterity points. Once you've "specialized" your points, you then get to pick what exact skills you'd like to enhance in each field. For example, you could use your dexterity to enhance your weapons or increase your swiftness.

The game is played in a huge maze; you go through rooms using doors, and there's a large map. As the name implies, there are quests you can take, too. For example, one quest had me searching all over the place for ten balloons.

The bottom line is that this is a surprisingly deep game that just might ensnare you for a good bit longer than you intended to play. Beware!

Elephant Quest is an addictive, deep platformer originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/25/elephant-quest-is-an-addictive-deep-platformer/

INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH IN MOTION YAHOO JACK HENRY and ASSOCIATES NOKIA DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES GOOGLE

You can now rent Adobe Photoshop for $35 per month, CS 5.5 available soon

Rejoice! No longer will you have to fork over $700 for a Photoshop CS5 license! Adobe has unveiled a new subscription scheme where you can rent the entire Creative Suite, or individual packages, by the month, or for an entire year.

Adobe Photoshop can be yours for $35 per month if you agree to rent it for 12 months, or $49 per month if you require its services for a shorter period. Dreamweaver can be had for even cheaper, at just $19 per month. The entire Master Collection is still rather expensive, though, at $125 per month.

Today, Adobe also ushered in the release of Creative Suite 5.5, and simultaneously upped its release cycle from 18 months to 24 months. This means, if you rent Photoshop for two years, it's actually the same cost as buying it outright. There's no rent-to-own option, though -- so you wouldn't have access to the cheaper upgrade price once Creative Suite 6 rolls around next year. Still, if you need access to Photoshop, After Effects or Premiere for a one-time project, the new rental scheme could be exactly what you're looking for.

In other news, Adobe has announced that it will be launching three rather exciting iPad apps that work in conjunction with Photoshop: Eazel, Nav, and Color Lava. Eazel lets you five-finger paint on your iPad, and export the result into Photoshop; Nav acts as some kind of workspace, brush and menu extension, and the hopefully named Color Lava is a paint mixing palette. The apps are expected to appear in the App Store in the next 30 days.

You can now rent Adobe Photoshop for $35 per month, CS 5.5 available soon originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/11/you-can-now-rent-adobe-photoshop-for-29-per-month/

HARRIS SIEMENS MICROS SYSTEMS NINTENDO COMMSCOPE NANYA TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES (IBM)

The YotaPhone and its e-ink display gets shown off on video for the first time

The YotaPhone from Russian broadband provider, Yota, was only unveiled yesterday with Android 4.2 and a second, e-ink display. It packs some pretty tasty specifications, but the difference maker is the e-ink display on the back -- or the front, whichever way you're looking at it. And, while we had a selection of renders to whet our appetite, what we really want is to see this thing in action. 

The good folks over at The Digital Reader stumbled upon this hands on video, shot with the Head of Software Development at Yota Devices. It shows off both sides of the device, the interesting looking gesture area that replaces the capacitive or on-screen buttons, and how some apps look when mirrored to the e-ink display. He goes through a series of use case scenarios for such a device, but no-one can say it isn't an interesting concept. It's also worth noting that it seems the on board storage and the final name of the device aren't yet decided. 

via The Digital Reader

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/RbHewfInWEo/story01.htm

MANTECH INTERNATIONAL L1 IDENTITY SOLUTIONS LOGITECH INTERNATIONAL INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH IN MOTION YAHOO JACK HENRY and ASSOCIATES

Save your tabs and Panorama tab groups in Firefox 4

Firefox 4 save tabs
When Firefox 4's tab grouping tool, Panorama, had its keyboard shortcut changed to the finger-breaking combo of Ctrl+Shift+E, we thought Panorama would get dropped before FF4's final release -- but, thankfully, it made the cut!

If you've used Firefox 4 and Panorama, you might have noticed that Mozilla's new browser doesn't always save your tab groupings when you close the browser -- a bit of a pain, if you spend a long time setting up the perfect groups! This is tied into the removal of the 'Save and Quit' dialog box -- and enabling Panorama tab group saving is just a matter of re-enabling the Save and Quit dialog.

Open a new tab and head to about:config. Click through the warning and type 'quit' into the filter box. Double click browser.showQuitWarning to change its value to true (see image after the break). That's it -- now you'll have the option of saving your tabs, and thus tab groups, when you close Firefox.

For more tech tips, visit our tips index.

Continue reading Save your tabs and Panorama tab groups in Firefox 4

Save your tabs and Panorama tab groups in Firefox 4 originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/save-your-tabs-and-panorama-tab-groups-in-firefox-4/

DIODES INORATED INTERNATIONAL GAME TECHNOLOGY ZIONS BAN SYNOPSYS SILICON LABORATORIES DELL COSMOTE MOBILE TELECOM

Banshee music player now works in Windows, supports Amazon MP3 downloads

A few moments ago, version 2 of the Banshee music player for Linux was released, bringing with it a whole slew of new features, and the addition of an official -- but alpha-quality -- Windows build. The Mac OS X build of version 2 is due later today.

The most notable new feature is support for the Amazon MP3 store -- you can buy and download music from within Banshee -- but unfortunately it's only available in the Linux build at the moment (OS X and Windows support are planned, however). There have also been some significant improvements to artist, album, and queue interactions -- and yes, you can finally right click a track, album or artist and select 'play after' to insert it into the queue.

Beyond actual playback, the user interface has been tidied up -- it now looks a whole lot smarter -- and the Ubuntu One Music Store and SoundMenu extensions have been made official. For a complete list of changes, additions and bug fixes, check the change log.

When Windows support initially appeared in February, we found it rough around the edges and fraught with stability issues. With version 2, Banshee for Windows is still a bit unstable, but it's shaping up to be a good alternative to Winamp, iTunes, or whatever other music library manager you use. It's almost as attractive as its GNOMEish brother, too!

Download Banshee 2 for Linux and Windows (Mac OS X coming soon)

Banshee music player now works in Windows, supports Amazon MP3 downloads originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/06/banshee-music-player-now-works-in-windows-supports-amazon-mp3-d/

NOKIA DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES GOOGLE NOVELLUS SYSTEMS SYNNEX QIMONDA LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS

IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison

Over on the Internet Explorer Blog, Microsoft has posted results from an extensive comparison of the top five Web browsers. The goal: to determine whether Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 10, Safari 5, or Opera 11 is able to squeeze the most life out of your laptop's battery.

A baseline was determined with test systems sitting idle, and then browsers were pointed at about:blank, a news site, the HTML5 Galactic demo, and the IE9 fish tank demo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, IE9 came out on top -- though Firefox 4 was a very close second on nearly every test. As you can see, the other browsers didn't necessarily fare quite as well, with Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera all posting significantly worse scores. In Opera 11's case, a laptop battery would last over one hour more with Internet Explorer 9 installed.


But what we'd really like to know is where did Microsoft find the dilithium crystals required to run a Galactic Total Power Consumption test...

IE9 and Firefox 4 post top marks in Web browser power use comparison originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/30/ie9-and-firefox-4-post-top-marks-in-pc-power-use-comparison/

AUTODESK SRA INTERNATIONAL IRON MOUNTAIN INORATED SANDISK EMC EPICOR SOFTWARE MICRON TECHNOLOGY

Edit your photos, mash them up into beautiful collages, and send postcards with Fuzel 2.0

There is an abundance of apps in the App Store devoted to making collages of your photos, and Fuzel has always been one of my favorites. It was recently updated to version 2.0, making this great collage-making app even better.

One of the big new features of Fuzel is the ability to create 5.25"x5.25" postcards and send them to friends and family. Shipping within the US is $1.99 and Internationally costs $3.99. This postcard feature is thanks to Fuzel's new partnership with MyPublisher Inc.

Fuzel has also added a new full-featured photo editor so that you can do all your editing directly in the app instead of switching to another app to do your editing. The adjustments you can make include lighting, color, sharpness, blur, and vignette. The editing tool is really simple to use and simply requires you to slide your finger left/right or up/down to apply the intensity of the adjustment (similar to iPhoto).

In addition to making basic edits to your photos, Fuzel also includes 19 different filters with the option to purchase 12 more as an in-app purchase for $0.99.

One of the great features of Fuzel is the ability to add frames, patterns, and labels to your collages and with 2.0, now there's even more to choose from. Fuzel comes with 6 labels and 24 patterns with the option to buy 12 more labels as an in-app purchase for $0.99.

The good

  • Excellent interface
  • Beautiful design
  • Edit individual photos
  • Add filters to photos
  • Choose a pre-designed template or edit your own cuts to make your collage truly unique
  • Choose between several different popular crop ratios (not just square!)
  • Send real postcards to friends and family
  • Add frames, patterns, and labels

The bad

  • Postcards restricted to square
  • Icons for choosing between taking a photo with the built-in camera or choosing one from the Camera Roll are nontraditional and may seem confusing to some
  • "Open in Instagram doesn't work correctly (this could be an Instagram problem, not Fuzel)"
  • Not available for iPad (it would be awesome on iPad!)

The conclusion

With Fuzel's update, it continues to be my go-to collage making app. It has an impressive design and includes a lot of features without feeling cluttered or complicated. Fuzel is an excellent app for creating collages.

Fuzel has a free version and "Pro" version. Purchasing the "Essential Pack" in the free version will make it equivalent to Fuzel Pro. So if you want to give Fuzel a spin before committing to the whopping $0.99 it costs to purchase the Pro version, give the free version a go and let us know what you think!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/pJWXjdq_me4/story01.htm

ACER SYBASE TECHNITROL NII HOLDINGS FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS FISERV DIGITAL CHINA HOLDINGS

How About an iTV Built by Sir Richard Branson?

When I first saw the news about the survey that revealed 47 percent of American heads of households were interested in buying an Apple-branded TV set, I thought, "Well, heck yeah, who wouldn't be interested in a real big-screen Apple HDTV?" And then the survey also claimed that respondents would be willing to pay a premium for an Apple-branded TV. Again, I thought, "Well sure, there's no way Apple is ever going to release any sort of hardware product that doesn't come at a premium price. Par for the Apple course."

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/2690e4ab/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C768460Bhtml/story01.htm

AMPHENOL QUALCOMM FEI COMPANY THQ BHARTI AIRTEL FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTOR INTERNATIONAL IDT

Go ahead, turn it up to 11. It’s a Marshall.

If you play a guitar, you’ve heard of Marshall amps. It’s hard to miss a rock photo from the 60s and 70s without some guitarist wailing in front of a wall of Marshall amps. Now, you don’t have to be a musician to feel that power. Marshall has introduced the Hanwell – its first consumer speaker that, of course, looks like an amp.

The Hanwell Anniversary Edition is housed in a wooden cabinet, covered in black vinyl with the ubiquitous Marshall logo in gold on the front grill. The Hanwell thumbs its nose at the digital world with analog switches and knobs. It’s also big and heavy like an amp.

Marshall states that the sound is tuned to deliver that famous Marshall tone and deliver it loud with long throw woofers and hi-fi tweeters. How successfully Marshall succeeds would need a full review.

Each Hanwell Edition comes with its own numbered commemorative badge, so the quantity is limited. The Hanwell is available in the US, Canada, Japan, EU, Norway and Switzerland. It is available now for $800 US.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, News

Tagged: ,

Go ahead, turn it up to 11. It’s a Marshall. originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 13, 2012 at 8:00 am.