The following review is a guest post by Jason Kaneshiro. Jason has also contributed numerous iPhone app reviews for Switching To Mac.

Game Concept: Color squares for points against several opponents in this turn-based board game.

The Good

Simple rules create deep gameplay: Move one adjacent square horizontally or vertically and turn the vacated square your color. Jump two squares horizontally or vertically, and all adjacent squares turns your color. Tap your current square to jump to a random, empty square. You can only move to open squares that haven’t been colored yet. Moving a single square turns out to be rather defensive, while jumping is required to grab territory. But if you can jump to a particular square, so can your opponent, and as a result, seemingly awesome moves can be undone not soon after.

You can have up to four players set to either human or computer opponents. The game is a lot more fun with four players and defaults to this mode.

The Bad

Sub-par graphics: your primary piece is happy face, the animation of squares changing color is blocky, and the screens surrounding the game are rather simplistic.

Wish pieces could move diagonally.

Conclusion

Although My Squares’ graphics aren’t that impressive, there’s a refreshingly compelling strategy game lying just beneath the surface. I’ll be playing this one for a while. The game is available for the iPhone and iPod touch for $0.99 from the App Store.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to take screenshots of your iPhone or iPod Touch screen
How to access uTorrent from your iPhone or iPod Touch
iPhone App Review: Diner Dash
How to reorder the icons on your iPhone or iPod Touch springboard
How to accurately relocate the cursor in Notes for your iPhone or iPod Touch

Thanks to the folks at Budget Gadgets I’m able to give you my thoughts on the T11S Stereo Wireless Bluetooth Headset with In-Ear Earbuds (with charger).

NOTE: this is not a paid review. Simple Help doesn’t do paid reviews. Ever. I was, however, allowed to keep the headset after writing this review. With that said, it in no way will influence my review of the product – I’m telling it like it is. Budget Gadgets has provided me with a coupon code for you to use: RM5OFF10. If you use that code at checkout you’ll get a 5% discount on your entire order.

After the order was placed, it took about 8 business days to arrive. This is a bit longer than some other online shops – but I live on an island in Canada, and the headset was delivered from Hong Kong. The folks at Budget Gadgets offer free shipping, and the cost of the headset ($34.28) more than made up for the wait (again, I didn’t pay for it, but had I, waiting 8 days wouldn’t have upset me at that price).

The entire package consisted of a charger, the bluetooth headset adapter, and a pair of headphones.

The Good

• Worked exactly as advertised
• Though the included headphones aren’t fantastic (see “The Bad” below) – you can plug in any standard 1/8th inch headphones (I prefer Sony earbuds) – which is a major plus for me
• I used them talking on my BlackBerry for about an hour, and then had 2 days of standby time left before they needed a charge.
• The clip included on the headphones is removable, and fits perfectly on my Sony headphones. Perhaps minor, but a nice little touch.
• Because you can use any 1/8th inch headphones w/ the Bluetooth adapter, you can use this headset as wireless headphones for your Mac or PC. I was easily able to pair it to my Mac, and instantly had wireless headphones – using my own preferred headphones. This would be particularly useful if you had a media center in your living room and didn’t want to wake everyone up watching movies/TV late at night.

The Bad

• As noted above, the headphones that it comes with aren’t the best. They’re similar to the headphones that come with iPods (but not white). Perfectly acceptable for perhaps most people – I just didn’t like them.
• The mic did have some static. Not the point where I wouldn’t use them, but on a windy day they might be annoying for the person you’re talking to.
• The charger – and this might just be my unit – requires that you plug it into the adapter just right – or it won’t charge. You have to slowly plug the charger into the adapter and then stop when the charge light comes on. This is a minor complaint, but like I said, I’m telling it like it is.

Conclusion

I would recommend the T11S Stereo Wireless Bluetooth Headset with In-Ear Earbuds. Between the price, free shipping and overall quality of the product it’s a worthwhile purchase.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Another category, look out Windows Mobile users
How to setup and use Skype on your Windows Mobile Smartphone
How to find the best available wireless connection using OS X
My Apple Menu Bar
How to enable WiFi in EeeDora

One of the problems I have with file sharing is that more often than not, it’s rather slow. When I say file sharing, I mean between one person and a friend, not bittorrent, eDonkey or Gnutella. For this you usually have to go through an Instant Messenger’s file sharing program or through sites like Rapidshare or Megaupload. The problem with IM file sharing is that it’s usually slow and if it gets interrupted, often you’ll have to start all over. The problem with sites like Rapidshare is that they don’t stream, which can be frustrating. Yes, there are sites like Streamfile that try to fix that last problem, but it can still mess up and you have to start all over!

So, here’s where Filephile comes in handy. You add your friends email address to it and you can send them a file or even a whole folder of files. It also lets you add a description to the file(s). Your friend will get an Incoming File Transfer window that shows your email address, the description you added, and an option for them to add you to their buddy list. They also get to choose where to save the file.

click to enlarge

The only real downside to this is that you have to sign up at the site to be able to use Filephile. This isn’t that bad though, because it’s really easy to do, and it will resume file transfers when it can if something messes up on either side. In addition, it’s cross platform, which means you can send files to all your friends. It doesn’t matter if they’re on Windows, OS X, Linux, or even BSD.

click to enlarge

There aren’t many downsides to this. It gives you free and simple file transfers that are only limited by the down/upload speed of the computers in the transfer.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to share files and folders between Windows and OS X using Parallels
An introduction to FMenu – an OS X app for Facebook
Using CrossLoop to remotely connect to, view and control another PC
How to share files and folders in Ubuntu
Dashboard Widget: Facebook Watch

This is a list of five of my favorite webcomics. They were chosen because they update regularly, have great art, and have a good story to go with it all. I also tried to stay away from the well known comics (like Questionable Content). They are listed in alphabetical order, not by how much I like them :)

Flipside is a comic that follows a free spirited jester girl named Maytag and her lover Bernadette, a swordswoman. “It’s a romantic fantasy adventure with a lot of action, and a small dose of horror.” says the site. It’s aimed at the more mature crowd and updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

FreakAngels is a mature comic about some psychic friends in a post apocalyptic steam punk world. If this doesn’t sound completely awesome to you already, you should still check it out. The art is great and it updates every Friday, but that Friday always brings six new pages!

Gunnerkrigg Court is a strange comic. It’s about a girl going to school in a world where technology and nature live separated. It reminds me a lot of Harry Potter, but with less wizardry and more technology. It updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and has a very nice art style.

Punch an’ Pie is a comic I just learned about a few weeks ago. It’s follows a bisexual woman named Angela living her life. It’s really funny, the art isn’t bad, and the story keeps you reading. There’s lots of drama in this one and it is probably aimed at those of us trying to live life after college. I think it updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I haven’t seen any promises to keep this on the site. Tho only problem I have with this comic is that I can’t find an RSS feed for it…

The Zombie Hunters is a comic that is exactly what you would expect from the title. Who doesn’t like zombies and great art? The site warns that it is ‘Rated R’ and says that it is ‘Updated every Monday and the occasional Thursday.’ It is probably the least often updated in this list, but it’s the only web comic I know of with a zombie theme.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to easily create great comics
How to open and view .cbr and .cbz files
A look at the Instantbird Beta
Hope you had a great summer!
How to emulate every Nintendo system in Windows

OpenArena is an open source First Person Shooter based around a Quake engine. It’s fast, violent, and very entertaining. And best of all, it runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X! It also has very low system requirements and can is portable, making it perfect for passing around the office and playing a few games while the boss isn’t looking. Not that I encourage that type of thing.

The games website gives a warning that the game may not be suitable to children under 17 due to violence and some women with very little clothing (which you usually don’t notice during all the action). If you’re alright with that, you can find some download links here. You should get a .zip file containing a folder with the game in it. Extract the folder where ever you like and (assuming you’re on Windows) just double click openarena.exe in the folder.

click to enlarge

The first thing you might want to do is go into Setup. Under Player you can put in the name you want to use. After that, you can click on Model in the lower left hand corner to choose your character. There are many to choose from but they are all the same except for how they look and the sounds they make. Penguin is my personal favorite.

click to enlarge

Under Controls go to Shoot and I recommend turning Auto switch Weapons to Off. The rest is pretty self explanatory, so lets move onto System. Here you can change a lot of things. Like resolution, whether it is running full screen or windowed, if you want bloom, and all kinds of other things. Now, back out into the regular setup and go to Game Options. Here you can change your cross hair and I also recommend that you turn Automatic Downloading to On, so you can download custom maps other people are playing.

click to enlarge

Now to the fun part! You may want to try out Single Player before diving into Multiplayer. It is basically the same, only you play against bots. Click on a stage and you can choose your difficulty. One thing I found interesting about the bots is that they taunt you! Every now and then their character’s name will show up having typed something. I find this pretty entertaining sometimes.

click to enlarge

Anyway, onto the game play. It’s your typical run and gun shooter. With a heavy emphasis on ‘run’. This is a pretty face paced game compared to most of the stuff out today. There’s a wide arrangement of weapons, too. From the close quarter combat saw (which you can switch to at any time by pressing 1) to the long range sniper (or rail gun) with some shot guns, rockets, and more in between. When I checked, there were 83 servers up for OpenArea. This isn’t too much, but it’s very easy to find a server to play in. And you can always create your own. There is also a wide range of maps, for good old death matches and for the slightly more tactical CTF mode.

click to enlarge

I enjoy playing this game from time to time. It is updated fairly regularly, and I can’t wait to see what all they do with it. There are other free (and better looking) shooters out there, but I love OpenArena’s retro feel and simplicity.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to set up Mail 3.1 for email
How to securely store files in Windows
How to open .rar, .arj, .gz, .tar and .rpm files in Windows
Review: Apogee Search
How to set up Thunderbird 2.0 for email

World Golf Tour is a free, Flash based (no download required) online golf game. You can play up to 9 holes on one of two courses (with more to be added soon) in a “closest to the pin” match. The “getting started” tutorial will walk you through how to play the game and explain each feature (club selection, swing type, aiming and striking).

click to enlarge

I’ll be the very first to admit it: I stink at video games. Flash based web games, console games, PC/Mac games. All of them. Not since the days of NES have I been even half-way decent. And even then, it was probably the hours and hours of time I put in that allowed me to finish games (usually on the “easy” level). That doesn’t stop me though – I still find the hugely entertaining, and World Golf Tour is no exception.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Review: Apogee Search
How to take screenshots of your iPhone or iPod Touch screen
How to send email from the Linux command line
Best of Blog Action Day
Folder Actions for OS X explained – with real-world examples

In this article you’ll find brief reviews, screenshots and download locations for 10 different Windows application launchers. If you can’t find one you like in this list, I’ve also included links to 5 6 (thanks Vince!) more at the very bottom.
 

Dash Command

Dash Command was probably the worst of the keystroke based application launchers that I’ve used. Here are my two biggest complaints – 1) It’s on “sale” for $19.95, which is the price for the “pre-release” version. It’s going to cost $50.00 after it leaves the pre-release stage. 2) It was very, very unstable in Vista (see the last screenshot below). Dash Command works on Win 2000, XP or Vista, and didn’t use too many resources (about 14MB, until it crashed – then it sky-rocketed to 200MB before I killed it). There is a trial version but it’s feature-limited to: only 5 user custom commands, limited web commands, no zip or email commands and you can only use the built in scanners. I couldn’t get the Music feature to work at all, but that may have been a limitation of the trial version (?). For the full list of features, see this page. My suggestion? Skip it. There are too many better application launchers with the same (or more) features, for much less money (free).

Launch the Command Prompt	Launch CCleaner
Docs and Files Scanning Setup	Crash, crash, crash.

Back to top

Find and Run Robot

Find And Run Robot (FARR) may not have the slick look (by default) of some of the other keystroke based application launchers, but it certainly doesn’t lack in features. And if there’s a feature not included by default, you can probably find an addon to include the missing functionality. FARR had a very small memory footprint in Vista – about 7MB. It indexes your files, bookmarks, folders, pictures and of course, applications. If you’re still using an older version of Windows you’re in luck – FARR works on Windows 9x, 2000, XP and Vista. A detailed (and always up to date) feature list for FARR can be found here. Like most of the DonationCoder.com software, FARR actually includes a list of its “competitors” in the help file, which isn’t something you see a lot of software packages include.

Default View	Launching an app
Advanced Visual Preferences	Search Behavior Preferences

Back to top

Launchy

Launchy is an open source keystroke based application launcher. It was designed to work on Windows XP, but there’s a .dll file available to get it to work (probably) in Windows 2000. It also worked perfectly in Vista (from my experience). Launchy is probably the most popular of the Windows keystroke based application launchers, and for good reason. It’s stable, uses minimal system resources (about 10MB in Vista) and has an extensive list of features (for the full list see the Launchy Readme file). There are also a number of very useful Launchy plugins for extra features, and skins if you don’t love the default look.

Launching an app	Search Google
General Preferences	Default Plugins

Back to top

nDroid

nDroid is another keyboard based application launcher. To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t my favorite. There are a bunch of plugins that extend basic functionality, but several caused frequent crashes. Actually it crashed a number of times with the default installation too. Unlike some of the other application launchers, it also indexes your desktop, documents and favorite websites (though most do index bookmarks/favorite websites). One rather unique feature is that it can replace your Start Menu ‘Run’ option, though if you’re using Vista, you might be better off with Start++ to enhance the Run menu. One big positive is that it uses very little memory, and can even be set to “Not-Always-Running” mode, which means it’s launched by the hotkey combo, and exits right after launching an app.

Launching an app	Search Google
General Preferences	Default Plugins

Back to top

SlickRun

SlickRun is a keystroke based application launcher. It resides just above the clock in your system tray (by default) and since it display the time and date when not being used, you can remove the time from your system tray to recover some space. Type help into SlickRun and you’re taken to the online help files, which are actually quite helpful. One of the neat features included in SlickRun is SlickJot – a place to store brief notes. You can add text to SlickJot by highlighting it and dragging it to the SlickRun window. You can also search through the clips using the built in find tool. Notes are automatically saved.

SlickRun has a very small memory footprint – only about 5MB at any given time. To add additional functionality to SlickRun you can install MagicWord Packs (found on the homepage in the MagicWord Packs section).

Default view and location	Search with Google
SlickJot feature	Right-click Menu
SlickRun Library	SlickRun Options

Back to top

Speed Launch

Speed Launch is Microsoft Office Labs recent entry into the application launcher uh contest. Rather than index all of your apps, it requires that you drag the app (or a shortcut to it) to a small circle that floats on your desktop. From there, you give it a name, and from then on you can launch it using that name. It requires the .Net Framework 3.0 (surprise surprise), but it’s not a half-bad app launcher. The MegaSearch feature actually includes search results from 3 search engines – not just Microsofts (Yahoo and Google are included by default).

Default view	Auto-complete
Weather lookup	Speed Launch options
Speed Launch Target

Back to top

Start++

Start++ is a Start menu addon for Vista. It extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands. Some of its features include: viewing Wikipedia entries, launching/playing music files, and running programs with elevated (administrative) privileges. There are a number of plugins available for Start++, though I was unable to get the Twitter plugin to work (uses PocketTweets). All in all, this is a pretty neat addon for the Vista start menu. If you use the Vista Start Menu as your application launcher, you may want to take a look at Start++.

Weather feature	Wikipedia feature
Google feature	Play Menu
Command Startlets	Start++ Gadgets

Back to top

ToolBox

ToolBox is an application launcher that started as a 16-bit Windows 3.1 application. No, I’m not kidding. It has of course evolved a lot over the years to include many additional features, including: multiple application launching windows, shortcuts to almost everything (files, urls, folders, drives), support for any icon size, a fully customizable user interface, and it can
monitor drive sizes and operating system up-time. You can create multiple boxes and customize each one to your liking. It can also be used on portable USB drives and even on read-only media such as CD-ROMs.

Custom ToolBox	Default Folders ToolBox
ToolBox Application Settings	ToolBox Window properties

Back to top

True Launch Bar

True Launch Bar isn’t a keystroke based application launcher, rather, it’s a replacement for the Windows Quick Launch Toolbar. Think of it as the Quick Launch Toolbar on steroids. Though it isn’t free, there is a 30 day fully functional demo (though it has some annoying nag messages). Setting it up takes a bit of work – there are a lot of options and settings, and if you try to use the settings page to create new menus, it can be a bit confusing. There’s a great Flash demo that explains how to use the “wizard” (and provides a good overview of the app). True Launch Bar works with Windows 9x/ME/2000/NT4/XP/Vista.

QuickLaunch Replacement	Custom Launch Toolbar
Access TBL Settings	Right-click Menu
General Options	Menu Appearance w/ Preview

Back to top

Vista Start Menu

Not really much to say about the Vista Start Menu. Since the introduction of Instant Search, not only does it index the vast majority of files on your PC (depending on your specific setup) – it’s an application launcher in and of itself. As usual, the How-To Geek has you covered with excellent tips on speeding up or disabling Windows Search indexing in Vista and speeding up the Vista Start Menu Search by limiting results.

Vista Search

Partial Filename Matching

Back to top

Some other Windows application launchers that I didn’t include above are: keybreeze, Key Launch, Executor, Skylight, ObjectDock and RocketDock

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Oct. 2007 Summary and a couple of site updates
How to access your Windows files and folders via a Firefox tab
Launchy – basic Weby tricks and appending to a text file
Simplehelp – stats for the first year
10 OS X Finder alternatives compared and reviewed

Since moving back to Canada, I haven’t been able to get my music fix with Pandora (listeners located outside of the U.S. can’t use Pandora). I’ve never been a huge Last.fm fan – the catalog of streamable music doesn’t include a lot of my favorite bands. In general, I’m just not a huge fan of online music services. Until now. Spotify, a lightweight Windows and OS X client, connects you to a vast collection of music. And it works outside of the US. Keep reading for my brief overview.

1. Like most Web 2.0 services, Spotify is in a “limited beta testing” phase. Submit your email address and when a spot opens up, they’ll let you know you can create an account and download the software. It took about 2 months from the time I signed up until I received the email saying I could create an account. But good things come to those who wait.
2. The interface is painfully user friendly (and identical for Windows and OS X). Once you sign in, you’re presented with the “home” screen.


click to enlarge

3. Use the search box to find artists/songs. Your recent searches are saved in the sidebar for easy access at a later point.


click to enlarge

4. Just double-click a song to start playing.


click to enlarge

5. Right-click (ctrl-click for single mouse-button Mac folks) a track to queue it, add it to a playlist or copy the HTTP/URI link to send to a friend (who will need to have a Spotify account in order to listen to the song).


click to enlarge

6. OS X users will enjoy Growl notification support built into Spotify.



7. If you want to listen to music without having to create a playlist, you can use the Radio feature. Radio allows you to specify the time-frame and genres of music you want to stream.


click to enlarge

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Review: Apogee Search
How to customize Windows Live Messenger (remove ads, add/remove buttons etc)
Advertise on Simplehelp
iPhone App Review: Diner Dash
iPhone App Review: My Squares!

The first public beta of 360desktop was made available today. I downloaded it, played around, and uninstalled it. Neat concept, not even close to ready for daily usage.

Yes, it’s a beta. That’s why I’m cutting it some slack. In truth? It should be labeled alpha. The Vista PC I tested it on is a P4 2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 300GB 7200RPM HD and an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500. 360desktop ran so slowly it was painful to use. It brought the entire system to a standstill. Admittedly, my video card certainly is not top of the line, but it does run Aero perfectly smoothly.

I’ll back up a second, since you might be asking “ok, but what is 360desktop?”. From their FAQ section and home page:

360desktop is a free and safe software download, that transforms your standard Windows desktop into a 360-degree panoramic workspace, giving you many times more desktop space. 360desktop is the convergence of the web and the desktop. If you “get” what they mean by Web 2.0, you can think of us as Desktop 2.0.

If you give it a shot, by all means please let me know how it runs on your PC (leave a comment). Right now it’s available for both XP and Vista, though not the 64bit version of Vista.

It crashed, twice, in the 20 minutes I tested it out. It brought explorer.exe down with it once. It randomly placed widgets on my desktop, though at no point did I have any installed. Update: thanks to Paul (see comments) for explaining that the widgets were included as a part of the (currently) default theme, “4th of July”). I don’t want to discourage you from trying it (though my installation of Vista is 2 days old, so it’s rather unlikely that it was “my system” at fault, in terms of conflicting software or OS errors). But in case you decide to wait a version or two, here are some screenshots to tide you over.

360 desktop in action

The QuickNav slider

360 Manager 360’s

360 Manager Widgets

A version or three from now I hope to be eating my words. This product is a great idea, in theory. The current execution is lacking.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Joost Beta 1 – Overview
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (Beta) Now Available
Netscape Navigator 9.0 (Beta 1) – Features, Requirements and Screenshot Tour
How to add favicons to your Firefox 3 Bookmarks Toolbar in OS X
Overview: Mailplane – a Gmail client for OS X (plus beta invites)

Recently a former co-worker of mine contacted me to tell me about his new startup – BackBlaze. I gave the service a try, and I have to admit – this is by far the easiest backup service I’ve ever used. Keep reading for the full review and a link to give the service a try.

Backblaze Philosophy: Backup All Data

The Backblaze service backs up all your data. We believe you should not need to worry whether you selected all the files you care about, put any files in a different location on your computer, or added any new files that may not be included in your backup. Therefore, we automatically select all your data.

Excluded Files

Backblaze does not want to waste your bandwidth or Backblaze datacenter disk space. Thus, we do not backup your operating system, program files, or temporary internet files that are transient and would not be useful in the future. At the moment we also exclude certain email file types since they change with each email received and the entire large file would be backed up and files that are individually over 100 MB. You can see these exclusions by clicking on “More Options…” in the Control Panel and selecting the “Exclude from Backup” tab.

And their software truly follows their philosophy. You run the installer, and you’re done. BackBlaze finds all of your Photographs/images, Music, Movies, Documents, Browser Favorites and Bookmarks etc, and backs them up. They have made backups so simple that yes, even your parents can do it.

At the end of the installation, BackBlaze tells you exactly what it’s going to start backing up (note: there are so few files in the screenshot below because I used the software on a nearly new Vista install).

click to enlarge

You can pause backups at any time, and the “tips” window will rotate through various suggestions/tips for BackBlaze.

click to enlarge

The main Settings page allows for you to throttle the bandwidth used for backups, alter the notification schedule, and edit the top directories.

click to enlarge

From the Schedule page you can change how often backups occur. You will likely want to leave the default setting, so that files are uploaded as soon as they are added/changed.

click to enlarge

By default, BackBlaze includes all of the Windows System folders to be excluded from being backed up. You can also use this section to add folders that you don’t want BackBlaze to backup.

click to enlarge

The Files Scheduled for Backup tab lists exactly what you’d think – all of the files currently scheduled to be backed up.

click to enlarge

There are currently 3 methods to restore your backups, and there’s a chance that before the product becomes “final”, they will have changed. The existing options are: 1) Back From The Web. You can choose sets of 1GB or less (BackBlaze zips your files into a 1GB zip file and you download that file). You can download an unlimited number of 1GB zip files. 2) BackBlaze will FedEx a 4.7GB DVD of your files. A fee applies, and this is one of the options that may be removed. 3). BackBlaze will load 160GB of your files onto a USB hard drive, and FedEx the drive to you. A fee applies for this option as well, and the final price has yet to be set.

click to enlarge

The web interface, as seen below, is quite easy to navigate and use. You just select the files you want to restore, and choose a restoration method.

click to enlarge

BackBlaze runs in the background all the time. It uses very little system resources and really does define the “set it and forget it” philosophy of software.

Pros and Cons

As I mentioned at the start of this review, this company was founded by a former co-worker. So in the interest of being completely fair, I will list some of the shortcomings of BackBlaze in addition to the benefits. Here goes.

Pros

Cons

So – there you have it. Now give it a try. Visit https://www.backblaze.com/simplehelp and the first 25 folks who sign up can skip the “invitation needed” requirement.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

10 Brightkite Invites for Simple Help readers
10 Dropbox Invites for Simple Help readers
How to backup your files online using SpiderOak – in Linux
Jango Invites
3 Google Voice Invites

Using the new service Hellotree.com, you can quickly and easily create a family tree. Now I know what some of you might be thinking – booooooring. Well as it happens I agree. But I have to tell you – my mom, grandmother and aunt absolutely love this service. They’ve created a family tree that goes back 7 generations and includes relatives in 8 different countries. And the very best part is that Hellotree is so easy to use, they don’t constantly bother me to “help”. Keep reading for an overview with screenshots etc. Note: this review/overview was not paid for, sponsored or endorsed by Hellotree. I just thought that if my family gets such a kick out of it, yours might too.

Overview: HelloTree is a free family tree site which is editable by each family member. You can also share/archive photos and send messages to each other. The (very simple to use) interactive flash design allows you to quickly add and invite family members to join the tree. As new members join they can invite more family and your tree grows in new directions across geographies and generations. You can also choose the privacy level you want and receive alerts whenever new members join or new photo albums are created. The default privacy level is “visible only to invited family members”.

Once you’ve created an account (painless) and you sign in, you’ll be presented with a ‘getting started’ wizard.

Adding additional relatives is as easy as clicking an arrow.

After 3 minutes I was able to add my immediate family. Note: none of the names in the screenshot are real, other than mine. Our “actual” Hellotree is huge.

click to enlarge

From your Profile screen you can create photo albums, add a picture of yourself or leave a message for your family.

click to enlarge

Editing your profile is simple and straight forward.

click to enlarge

As is creating photo albums, uploading pictures and setting the privacy level.

Though the screenshot below was created just for this review/overview, my actual hellotree family tree has dozens of photo albums contributed by 6 or 7 of my relatives.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to easily create great comics
Email Virus Warning: That Greeting Card isn't from Mom
How to Create a Multi Part Tar File with Linux
How to analyze disk usage in Ubuntu
6 websites to convert files from one format to another

Another possible name for this post could be “SmartToolkit review with a tour of its features and lots of screenshots”, because that’s essentially what it is. Though I’ve only had a Smartphone for about a month and a half now, SmartToolkit is by far the best piece of (free) software I’ve found for Windows Mobile devices.

If you’re less interested in opinion and more interested in screenshots/features – scroll down. Otherwise… SmartToolkit makes using a Windows Mobile device far more intuitive, efficient and even improves the graphical user interface. To top it all of, at this time, SmartToolkit is free.

The biggest improvement it provides to Windows Mobile is navigation. SmartToolkit “takes over” your Start button and what was previously your Contacts button. Instead of clicking Start and having Windows Mobile open the list of your installed programs, it opens a Vista/XP-styled Start menu. From there you can quickly access your most used applications Applications, all of your Applications and all of your files and folders. The Contacts button becomes a Task Manager and screenshot utility.

On top of all of that, it doesn’t seem to slow down Windows Mobile itself. Other apps that alter the default GUI often use up too much memory – SmartToolkit does not. Even though it’s still in beta, I’ve been using it pretty heavily for the last few days and it hasn’t caused a single crash (or crashed itself) yet. By the way – I wasn’t paid to say any of this, I’m just that impressed.

Works with:
Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone
Windows Mobile 2003SE Smartphone
Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone
Windows Mobile 6 Standard

Download SmartToolkit 1.0.0 RC07

1. After installed, launch SmartToolkit from your Programs list. You’ll notice the Start button changes and the Contacts turns into Task.



2. Click the new Start button, and check out your new menu. From here you can launch IE, view your Tasks, open Windows Media Player etc.



3. Select All Programs, and you’ll get a list of all your installed programs.



4. Use the right-arrow key on your Smartphone keypad, and you’ll be presented with the ’second’ Start menu. From here you can browse your Documents, Schedules, Storage card etc.



5. To Reboot or Shutdown your device, select System Power. This is also the menu that allows you to exit out of SmartToolkit – though I’m not sure why you’d want to.



6. Click on the Tasks button. You’ll be presented with the list of currently running applications.



7. Use the left-arrow key on your Smartphone keypad, and you’ll get the Options for the Task manager. It’s from here that you can close apps, close all apps etc.



8. Use the left-arrow key again and you’ll be able to take a screen capture (screenshot). You can even time them.



9. If you select the SmartToolkit app again (while it’s already running) you’ll get a Resources Info screen. This appears to be a part of the Plugins system – which I’m off to investigate now.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Overview: Microsoft releases Office Mobile 6.1
How to install the OS X Leopard skin on your Windows Mobile Smartphones
How to install the Windows Mobile 7 skin on your Smartphone
How to access uTorrent from your mobile device
How to add your Alarm information to your Windows Mobile home screen

John Boxall and Igor Faletski of Handi Mobility (a local British Columbia company) are about to release Live Vote – a free SMS voting system similar to the one used in “American Idol”.

Live Vote was recently demonstrated at DemoCampVancouver, and was well received. I requested a beta invite a couple of days ago and have been playing with the service ever since.

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of cool ways to use Live Vote. Letting the crowd decide the winner for karaoke contests, engaging your audience during presentations (just ask them to put the cells away after they text their answer), even getting the group to decide where to go for dinner. Canada may not have MP3 downloads from Amazon (or iTunes), the ability to use Pandora or watch episodes of Lost from the ABC website, but at least we have Live Vote.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving
Canadians: Tomorrow is your best chance to fight the Canadian DMCA! Event in Calgary, national phone-in
TV Shows and DRM-free music comes to the Canadian iTunes Store
How to backup your Windows Live Contacts
How to customize Windows Live Messenger (remove ads, add/remove buttons etc)

I’ve been using Joost on and off for about 4 months now. More off than on. It’s not that I didn’t like the app – it was pretty slick and quite solid for an early beta. It’s that there wasn’t a heck of a lot to watch. At some point over the last few weeks, they’ve added a lot of channels/content, and the latest version (beta 1) is even slicker than before.

Note: Invites aren’t required any more – Joost is now open to anyone who wants to sign up. Just head over to joost.com and sign up.

click to enlarge

The basic player hasn’t change drastically since the earlier versions.

click to enlarge

But channel navigation has improved at least 100%. The categories are self-explanatory, you can resize the “tiles” for each channel as you see fit, and creating a ‘custom channel’ is as simple as dragging and dropping.

click to enlarge

I’m still not sure that I’d ever realistically want to use many (any?) of the widgets. If I have Joost in full-screen, that generally means whatever I’m watching is getting my attention. If I wanted to view RSS feeds or watch a clock tick while I was using Joost, I’d use it windowed.

click to enlarge

Scrolling through the various options..

click to enlarge

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

Joost Invites
Jango Invites
10 Brightkite Invites for Simple Help readers
Overview: Mailplane – a Gmail client for OS X (plus beta invites)
Pownce overview and 10 invites for Simplehelp Readers

Delicious Library has been out for a while. I know this. I’ve had their site bookmarked for months, and during my last ‘bookmark cleanup’, I decided it was time to finally time to download and install it. The following article is part tutorial, part overview, and has lots of screenshots. If you’re a serious DVD, book or CD collector, you may want to take it for a spin.

Delicious Library is $39.95 to purchase, but a time-limited demo is also available. You’ll need Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” or higher.

1. Since you’re using the demo version of Delicious Library, you’ll be prompted to click USE DEMO every time you open the program. Such is life..



2. The very first time you open Delicious Library, you’ll be asked if you want to Create an empty library or Start with our sample library. I opted for creating my own..


click to enlarge

3. Assuming you have an iSight camera – be it built in or USB (or Firewire?) – you’ll want to try the bar code scanner feature right away. It’s actually pretty cool. Click the Toggle iSight monitor button at the bottom of the window.


click to enlarge

4. A new window will open with a ‘bar code scanner’ across the screen. Hold a book, CD or DVD up to your iSight. Adjust it until the bar code is being ’scanned’ by the red lines. It’s a little awkward at first if you’re using an iSight built into your Mac (Macbook, Macbook Pro or iMac). You’ll get used it to. I suspect this process is even easier if you have an external iSight, but can’t confirm that (’cause I don’t).



5. When Delicious Library recognizes the item, it’ll import a whole slew of info about it. And if your speakers are on and the volume is up – don’t be too surprised when Delicious Library “reads” the item out loud to you (this feature can be turned off in the Preferences). The Album/Book/Movie name, cover-art, author/artist etc. is all imported. If it’s an album, the tracklist will be imported.


click to enlarge

6. If for any reason Delicious Library can’t find the right info about an item using the scanner, you can always search. Just enter the title or artist (or both) and click the Find by Title button.



7. From the list of search results, click the + (plus) sign and it will add that item to your library.



8. If you own multiple items by the same author (or artist, band etc) – you can search for that name, and click the + (plus signs) next to each item you own.


click to enlarge

9. Use the slider at the bottom of the window to increase the size of your shelf icons.


click to enlarge

10. One neat feature is the ability to ‘check out’ things from your Delicious Library. Lend your friend a couple of DVD’s? Click the Add a new user button and locate your friend in your address book. Then you can drag those DVD’s to his/her entry in your Borrowers list. So in six months when you’ve completely forgotten who you lent them to, now you’ll be able to ‘remember’.


click to enlarge

11. Double-click any of the items on any of your shelves, and a detailed window will appear.


click to enlarge

12. As a nice added bonus, Delicious Library includes a Dashboard widget that lets you quickly search through your items.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

How to use the Content Library feature of Publisher 2007
How to determine the number of times your site has been bookmarked on del.icou.us
How to use Winamp to manage your iPod
How to rebuild a corrupt iPhoto 08 database
How to manage your iPod using Rhythmbox in Ubuntu