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SmileyCentral offers a range of new emoticons, images, and animations for integration into e-mails, Facebook messages, and text messages on your phone or tablet. The result is a fun-to-use, easy-to-set-up app that provides numerous additional options if you are eager to stay in active communication with people in ways that go above and beyond the boring old :) and ;| options you've been using.

The app has dozens of emoticons, smileys, and images built in, upon installation, including seven different categories--many of which are new to the iPhone. You can also download new packs according to the specific types you want. … Read more

Open Pics provides an invaluable service, searching through millions of open-licensed pictures on digital libraries from New York City, the Library of Congress, "LIFE" Magazine, and more. With the tap of a button you can find and use images from throughout the last two centuries from the streamlined interface of this very useful iPad app.

The app is designed to be as minimalistic as possible. Open it and you're presented with a black screen and a white search box. Type in your query and choose the library in which you want to search, and then press "… Read more

Num Fun - Addition teaches children addition concepts through the use of a fun yet basic game. It's an intuitive app with solid production qualities that is fun to use, though ultimately limited in features. The trial restrictions also present some issues for anyone looking for free educational apps for their children.

Num Fun - Addition, for the most part, does everything a children's educational app should do, correctly. It looks pretty, it has fun music that is pleasant to listen to, and the interface is very easy for a young child to pick up and use almost … Read more

Hangouts is the standalone app for Google's conversation hub, Hangout, and for the most part recreates the desktop experience very well, even adding some additional features for broadcasting on the go. The app, which is scaled for both iPhone and iPad, is designed for sharing content and is deeply integrated with Google+. If you enjoy using Google+, then this app is a natural extension of that.

Google's Hangouts is already a very popular and efficient tool, offering a free alternative to pricey Web conferencing tools. However, the mobile app takes that functionality to the next level. The Google … Read more

Wig Wiggle DJ Scratch is a fairly basic, but ultimately very fun app that allows you to choose songs from your library and play them as a digital record. You can scratch the record all you want, though the similarities to a real DJ's booth end there. With many feature limitations, this isn't a perfect DJ simulator, but it is a lot of fun.

Open the app and you see a large record on the screen along with Load and Play buttons. The Load button allows you to search through your song collection to find a tune to … Read more

Voice for Mac works fairly well at translating text into audio, but the available voice options all sound very computerized. The application is available for free and installs easily.

The main menu seems sparse with few details that would be expected of an advanced application. Fortunately, the main functions are clearly labeled. A box allows text to be manually typed or pasted in from other applications. An export button allows the output to be saved for later use, and a Preferences menu allows selection of a number of playback voices and speed of the reading. After typing in the text, … Read more

RadarSync PC Updater 2012 might be the easy way to keep your PC's drivers up to date, but its free trial disables its primary functionality. PC Updater scans your PC to identify its software and drivers, and then scans the Internet for updates and applies them one by one or all at once. While it's a free-to-try PC Updater, you still must register the program to apply the updates it identifies. That costs just under $25 but includes technical support (the interface even displays a toll-free, 24/7 support number).

PC Updater's user interface has controls for … Read more

Apple's Windows Migration Assistant for Mac lets users transfer network files from a PC to their Mac and offers all the ease of use and effectiveness you'd expect from a Mac tool.

Apple Windows Migration Assistant for Mac downloads as an EXE file and you'll need to install it on the PC you want to grab files from. Even though the app is around 5MB in size, the download took longer than expected. The installation was smooth, though, as there was a native installer present. For the transfer to work, both Mac and PC need to be … Read more

Minima is designed to quickly and easily shrink images taken by the camera on your iOS device, and works incredibly well. Because of the naturally very large file size of most images on the iOS camera, it can become a space issue quickly--Minima fixes this problem, automatically, as you take new photos.

To shrink an image in Minima, all you need to do is open it. Tap the image in your library to open it and it will be instantly resized, according to the settings. There are five options here--mini, midi, maxi, and either iPhone or iPad. You can set … Read more