4.2

Improve Google Calendar with Checker Plus

If you use Google Calendar to keep your existence humming along smoothly, you'll like Checker Plus, an add-on for Google Calendar. Checker Plus brings a lot of useful features, such as Quick Add desktop notifications with Snooze and Dismiss options, audible reminders, and even a cooking timer that will tell you when it's time to take the pizza out of the oven. Checker Plus is free, but it could conceivably pay for itself in no time simply by preventing API (accidental pizza incineration) due to cyberdistraction, a leading cause of domestic discord.

Checker Plus downloads and installs like … Read more

Tidy up your registry with Abyssal Registry Cleaner

Abyssal Registry Cleaner is a freeware registry cleaner that offers several advantages, chief among them safety and simplicity. Like other registry cleaners, it scans your system's Windows registry for broken, invalid, and corrupt entries and deletes all or some of them, as you choose. And, like other free registry cleaners we've tried, it tends to emphasize speed and safety over deep cleaning. It automatically backs up your registry before it deletes any files, making it possible to restore the previous version if you need to.

Abyssal Registry Cleaner's user interface resembles many similar tools, with large, colorful … Read more

Get VIPRE AV for free with UnThreat Free AntiVirus 2012

UnThreat Free AntiVirus 2012 is a free antivirus software solution from AVSoftware. It uses the popular, well-received VIPRE antivirus engine, and offers basic protection from viruses, Trojans, rootkits, malware, adware, and other threats, including e-mail protection and antispyware protection. UnThreat Free is based on a premium tool that includes a firewall and other extra features. The freeware omits those and other bells and whistles, and it doesn't need them. Its chief recommendation is the VIPRE engine, which has tested well against a variety of threats and has generally been available only in premium AV software, until now.

When our … Read more

Charge two iPads at once with Qmadix Twin Tablet Charger 4.2

To many of you, one USB car charger is just as good as the next, but if you've ever tried to plug your shiny new iPad or massive screened smartphone into a cheapy charger, odds are you quickly learned how wrong you were.

Not all powered USB ports are created equally. Most USB car chargers output about 0.5A of charging power, which is a massive jump over the original "low load" USB standard of just 0.1A. However, tablets require a bit more juice still than these powered ports can supply. In the case of the … Read more

The Rolls-Royce of mahjong

We have loved mahjong--or the popular computer version of it, which is really mahjong solitaire--ever since we first encountered it in our middle school computer lab. True mahjong is a multiplayer table game and bears little resemblance to the computer game that most Westerners know, which involves matching mahjong-style tiles with one another in order to clear the board. Mahjong In Poculis is the latter. If you're looking for traditional mahjong, this isn't it, but if you're a lover of mahjong solitaire, be prepared to spend a big chunk of your time with this addictive game.

The … Read more

Worthy competitor

When it comes to creating documents, spreadsheets, databases, and presentations, MS Office is the suite that comes to mind. But let's face it: Office is a pricey piece of software. Thankfully, there are cheaper alternatives out there, but they don't always live up to their promise. LibreOffice offers up a free alternative, and we found it on par with its more popular competitor.

LibreOffice opens with a main menu that let us select which application we wanted to use: Base, Calc, Draw, Impress, Math, and Writer. Each application's interface will look very familiar to you if you'… Read more

CNET Car Tech: 2011 Audi A4 2.0T

Audi's A4 has grown up to be a substantial competitor to the immovable 3 Series. The company is also in a head-to-head race with BMW to offer the most innovative in-dash navigation, interface, and media options. Brian Cooley takes you for a drive in the 2011 A4 2.0T to check the tech.

You can also read the full CNET Review of the 2011 Audi A4 here.

How to customize text alerts by contact on iOS

Knowing who sent you a text message before even looking at your phone is extremely convenient, especially if you are the type who receives many SMS messages daily. One way to know who is on the other end of that SMS you just received, is to customize the text alert, based on a contact, on your iPhone. It is a simple process to set up, but one that is easy to miss if you aren't paying attention.

While this capability has been around for those in the jailbreak community from early on, it's a fairly new feature having been introduced in iOS 4.2.

Bubble blast

We've seem numerous iterations of games like Bubble Shooter 4, a puzzle game that involves shooting colored bubbles at other bubbles of the same color to clear them from the board. Bubble Shooter 4 is neither the best nor worst that we've encountered in this genre, but there is one thing we can say for it: we ended up playing it for way longer than we had intended.

The game has an underwater theme, and gameplay is overseen by a cranky-looking mermaid. The game board is filled with bubbles of various colors, and a pointer at the bottom … Read more

How to change the default iOS search provider

Currently, all iOS devices come with the Mobile Safari search provider set to Google. For most users Google works, and the thought of changing it will never cross their mind. For others who prefer to use Bing and Yahoo, changing the default search engine is preferred. This simple guide will show you how to change the default search engine on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. … Read more