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The goal of Facebook Pages Manager, from Facebook's perspective, is to separate the business and personal tools often utilized by Facebook users, streamline the interface of the core app, and make Page updates easier. But the resulting app has many crossover features, and the fact that you have no choice but to switch between apps can be frustrating at times.

If you have a Facebook Page and try to check your notifications, respond to a message, or make an update in the standard Facebook App, you'll be told to download Facebook Pages Manager. Once you do, those notifications … Read more

For those users who have and want to share tons of images and videos, PictureSync for Mac's features, design, and instructions make it a very useful tool for batch uploading of image files.

PictureSync for Mac, available as freeware, starts with a tutorial that opened automatically to prompt the user to enter log-in information for sites where photos would be uploaded. A program menu then came up, which explicitly stated there was no technical support available. This could make less experienced users uneasy, but we didn't experience any issues that would require support in our tests. The main … Read more

If you're looking for a solid, non-Google planner, you've found it in mOffice. It has a smooth layout and most of the features you love about Google--all in a neat package.

This app is designed to sync with your Outlook desktop program. It will also sync with a client called Mobisynapse, but that costs an extra $10. This app falls under the "Getting Things Done" category, which seems to mean it's optimized to make work convenient. As such, mOffice has a very clean interface that makes it easy to find the features and menus you'… Read more

QR Code Reader is a basic application that allows the user to read QR codes and take action depending on the information stored in them. There are many good applications available that are capable of this function, but this one doesn't seem to be one of them.

Once QR Code Reader has been downloaded it opens quite sluggishly. On the Samsung Galaxy Nexus it took 15 seconds to open the application. For such a small application this delay seems unexplainable. The user interface features no controls. It simply displays a viewfinder window that must be lined up with the … Read more

For those who want a scanning program that adds features over those of native Mac applications, VueScan for Mac does just that--and it performed well in our tests.

VueScan for Mac comes with a free trial version that limits the scanners available for use. The full version costs $39.95 to unlock. The download completed as quickly as expected via a high-speed connection. A user guide was available as a link to the developer's Web site, which was a helpful feature. Support for updates also appeared to be available. The main menu had a dated design, but was functional. … Read more

Thanks to video games, karaoke is more than just a barroom activity, and StarMaker Karaoke makes it more accessible than ever with a robust, feature-filled app that is a lot of fun, despite its relatively high cost of entry.

StarMaker Karaoke with Auto-Tune is exactly as it sounds, a karaoke app that allows you to sing along to your favorite songs on the iPad. You can record each of the songs as you sing them and even turn on Auto-Tune or Magic Tune to really take your song to the next level. Combined with guide vocals, background vocals, headphone recording, … Read more

Keeping track of all the things you do on your PC is probably a problem for you, and why shouldn't it be? It is for everyone else. This brings us to Staxofax Lite. It's the freeware version of Staxofax, a clipboard data manager. Like the full version, Staxofax Lite lets you save anything you copy to the clipboard to a single sheet (helpfully known as a "Sheet") of color-coded, customizable links that can launch a variety of apps. Staxofax Lite also backs up your saved data, so no matter what crashes, you'll still have your … Read more

The number of programs claiming to allow conversion of video files and DVDs makes choosing an appropriate one difficult. MakeMKV for Mac performs this task well, but its lack of features and relatively complicated interface may make it a less desirable option for average users.

The program seems to be available as freeware, but its documentation states it is a beta version that will stop functioning after 60 days. It also states that downloading the latest version will reset this time limit. Installation was more complicated than expected and required us to accept a lengthy agreement disclaiming the developer's … Read more

Watermarking publicly released videos can prove to be beneficial in a wide range of circumstances. VideoMark for Mac helps you both protect your videos with a digital watermark as well as create brand awareness by promoting your business logo while advertising your products or services.

VideoMark for Mac installs easily, and the setup takes no time. On the main interface, you can drop the video to be watermarked and choose between a text watermark or an image watermark. Only basic options are available such as text color, stroke color, font, and transparency. Transparency is supported for both images and text, … Read more