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As if it needed to be any more addicting, you can now take The Sims with you wherever you go. It's not the exact version you're used to, but The Sims -- FreePlay gives you all the best parts of The Sims on smartphones and tablets. Be careful, though; it takes a lot of resources to download and run.

Before you can start playing, you have to go through a download process that clears 300MB. This will push your smartphone's data plan to its limit quickly, so make sure you download it via Wi-Fi. Even then, it … Read more

Why spend thousands on a tank when you can have dozens of exotic fish on your gadget? Fish Live gives you an interactive fish tank that you can clean, feed, or just watch swim. It gives constant notifications, which it wants to push to your status bar, but can offer you loads of addicting fun.

You start the game with a crystal clear tank and enough money to fill it with several different species of fish. The game's cute animations will look really exceptional on tablets and phones with hi-res screens, and all the controls are obvious to find. … Read more

Sketchbook Copic Edition is a drawing and illustration tool. Copic, for those unaware, manufacturers a line of markers, and they teamed up with Autodesk to create Sketchbook Copic Edition. Essentially a stripped-down version of Sketchbook Pro with branding and colors from Copic, this app lets you create illustrations using the Copic color palette.

Sketchbook Copic Edition installs easily. The Sketchbook interface will be familiar to many, with a set of drawing and shading tools available. You can use gesture-based systems to draw, and the app integrates with drawing tablets and pen systems well. The interface is clean and well laid … Read more

Fish are a popular theme for screensavers; the computer screen lends itself well to aquarium-like graphics, and screensaver developers have taken full advantage of that fact. We like this trend, too; these screensavers bring some of the beauty and relaxation of aquariums to your desk without the hassle of cleaning tanks and adjusting pH levels. Free Desktop Fish Screensaver is one of many such programs, and it didn't do much to impress us. It's not awful, but there are many similar programs out there that we like better.

The program installs easily and appeared in our Display Properties … Read more

Occasionally we'll be in the middle of doing something with a seldom-used program and will be interrupted--always when we're in a hurry, of course--by a software update that must be downloaded before we can proceed. We love the idea of a program that will let us check for and download updates for all our programs at once, and that's what Update Notifier attempts to do. Unfortunately, this program works better in theory than in practice.

Update Notifier's interface is pretty easy to understand; there are three tabs that list up-to-date programs, programs on the watch list (… Read more

If you're having trouble naming that tune, just fire up SoundHound to speak, sing, hum, type, or record a song for the music-identification service to identify. It will return a song, complete with artist bios, video links, and links to an online music store. SoundHound will also, crucially, pull in song lyrics where available or link you to a lyrics search where they're not. Trend charts show you how popular a song is vis a vis the publisher's online and mobile network, and you can see which songs other users have identified. A free version of SoundHound … Read more