Chime: The All in One Notification System for Google Chrome

Getting notifications on your computer usually means going to every platform you want to be updated on and looking at them one by one. This is an incredibly outdated and slow system to keep tabs on your favorite pages. There’s good news though. A new extension for Google Chrome allows you to follow all of your sites at once and get the notifications without doing a thing. After downloading Chime, a window will pop up allowing you to check each service such as Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and anything else you can think of too. This is also the chance for you to sing into any sites that Chrome hasn’t tracked itself, but you can always add more sites to the list later.

The notifications will start to come in immediately after installation. The interface is great and looks and makes perfect sense. With color coded notification bars for each website, you can tell which service you’re getting notified for from just a glance. This also works great for Mac and Windows just as well.

Another great positive of this extension is that it makes using all of these sites more secure. There’s no server side code which means all of the data being sent and received stays on your computer only, where it belongs. It also saves you from having to sign into all of your services each time you logout or close the window. Chime automatically can be set to remember logins so that they can access all of your sites at once with no hassle. Of course, if you’re someone who never entrusts any saved password there’s a setting to have it not allow it too.

This also makes any other social media or relevant extensions unnecessary which can help you clean up your toolbars and browser interfaces as well. The only thing this extension leaves me hoping for is Google + integration, which is honestly shocking that it doesn’t have.

Source: Chime For Google Chrome

 

[Image Credit: Chrome Web Store]

Unclutter App for Mac – The Best Way to Clean Your Desktop

I work as a writer and blogger for most of my week days. Although this is great work and fun for most of my time spent on it, my computer’s desktop suffers a bit as a side effect. If I have multiple projects going on at the same time and deadlines left and right it feels a little like a wind storm came by and knocked over my trash bin onto my desktop. With a slew of icons, images, and documents in every nook and cranny the clutter on my desktop is far from manageable. Finally, there is a solution!

The Unclutter app for Mac helps get any dirty and unorganized desktop back into shape in a breeze. The interface is great an comes naturally. It stays as a little bar on the top of the screen. All you have to do drag and drop your stuff in there and it sorts it out for you in an easy and clean looking way.

This is a great solution for people like me who hate having twenty finder windows open and even more document files up. It helps take all of that bulk down in a way that makes it look nice and keep you from dragging windows in an attempt to resize them and fit them all into one screen.

The best part of this app is that since it’s essentially always open it allows for you to maximize the fact that it is also a clipboard viewer and notepad while being a storage space. I use it for a notepad quite often actually. I find myself pulling it down just to jot a quick note or make a small list of priorities of the pages I have up. All in all the design, execution and functionality of the app make it great for exactly what it should be.

Source: Unclutter for Mac

[Image Credit: Apple Mac Store]

Carbon- An App to Sync and Backup Your SD Card or Cloud Storage

There have been years now that we have had to wait for a fully functional and properly executed backup system for our Android devices. Sure, we’ve trusted our entire schedules, our lists of carefully constructed contacts, our incredibly important notes to our Android devices, but with no assurance of saving that information in case of emergency. Now there is a solution! Backup your Android device’s memory with Carbon, the app that will sync your Android device and allow you to finally have peace of mind knowing that the information you have can be saved somewhere without all that extra hassle.

Considering we have legitimately made our smart phones into our personal assistants it’s crazy to think that most of us have gone this long without a backup app like this to sync and store our data to and SD card or cloud storage Imagine one day in real life having an assistant who keeps all of our information, dates, phone numbers and addresses and then just losing them one day. Never hearing from them again would be devastating and a huge blow to productivity. Now imagine that same situation, but now when you lose them you have another version of them, a cloned twin that kept all of that information for you as well. How amazing would that be! That’s what it’s like with Carbon.

That may have been a far fetched scenario, but it’s still relevant. Carbon is a great app for your Android device to carefully and securely save all of your information and back it all up. The only catch is that it doesn’t work on a Motorola device.

Source: Carbon – App Sync and Backup for Android

 

[image via Google Play Store]

Microsoft Launches: “Modern IE”

When most people hear anything about the name Internet Explorer they usually get reminded of that annoying cousin, or a flat tire. It may have been amusing at one point, but now it’s just something that’s there because it was once something. This might be different! As much as it surprises me this new site called Modern.ie is a way that Microsoft is hoping to completely innovate the way the web is developed. The slogan with the site is “spend more time innovating and less time testing”. It actually surprises me to say that I think it will do just that.

It is a site that is going to be a tool for developers. It will allow you to run your code of your site through the page to have the service expose any flaws or error in the page’s coding which needs to be corrected for any web browser. It’s reminiscent of those insurance companies who let you compare their prices to their competitors since modern.ie will allow you to run your code and search it for flaws on other major browsers too. This is because they have teamed up, temporarily with Browser Stack, the service that let’s you search your code on multiple browsers. We’ll see if they extend this partnership in the future because in all honesty if modern.ie only caters to finding flaws and helping you code to Internet Explorer its days could be numbered.

The main concern here is obviously putting your little bundle of joy, your hard worked out code, into a site that is on the internet for others to possibly exploit, and also have your possible site exploits put out for others to find. Modern.ie ensures that security is their top priority and all content placed there will be completely safe, but on the internet is anything really ever completely guarded?

It’s a great gesture, and a nice way to link your code to Internet Explorer, but actually knowing the significance and understanding the effectiveness of the site in the long run is hard to say. For now, all I can say is, thanks, but we’ll see what happens.

Source: Modern.IE

5 Best Running Games on the Google Play Store

The mobile gaming environment has been flooded with running games and side scrolling adventures which seem to be well suited for the touchscreen and mobile device platform. Given all of the options it seemed necessary to whittle down the apps out there and make a list of the best 5 running games for Android devices. Here’s what we’ve come up with:

Temple Run 2 ;

temple_run-2

This second installment of the incredibly popular Temple Run franchise has become the newest craze in the mobile gaming world. The number of downloads in the past two weeks since its release have been amazing. The game itself is solid, a definite improvement from the last version. With only new additions and great new gameplay this is at the top of the list.

Subway Surfers ;

subway_surfers

This game doesn’t yet have the publicity that the top title does, but it is another great game that really shows off the ability of the Android OS. It is seamless and a great, fun, addicting game. The little avatar characters are reminiscent of those created on the Xbox 360. Grinding trains and train rails has never been safer or more enjoyable than on Subway Surfers.

Rail Rush ;

rail_rush_01

This game is another running or sliding movement based game which is very similar to the previous two in terms of gameplay. It is another very fun and addicting addition to the Android game marketplace. Ride little mining rail carts all the way down and collect items along the way,

Running Fred ;

running_fred

This is a personal favorite of mine. There’s something about the great list of characters and little tricks which make this a very unique title. It’s certainly worthy of a download. The graphics are even surprisingly amazing for a mobile app.

Run Like Hell! ;

run_like_hell

This game is another slide and run style game like Temple Run. The same movement and physics are present and the game itself performs quite well. With different game modes and a list of sweet features and abilities for your character this game is far from one dimensional and allows you to really get a great game feel, not just a regular tap tap tap boring game.

Definitely give all of the games on this list a download and find out for yourself why they made our list. They’re all fun and addicting, and will have you procrastinating on whatever you need to get done.

 

[images via Google Play Store]

Samsung unveils new Galaxy Pop with quad-core processor and 8MP camera

Sasmung has added another smartphone to its most popular Galaxy family. Samsung today launched its new Galaxy Pop phone in its home country South Korea.  Surprisly the phone has been renamed from ‘Galaxy Premier’ to ‘Galaxy Pop’ . There are no major changes noticed in the specs of Galaxy Pop.

Samsung Galaxy Pop features as 1.4GHz quad-core CPU, LTE support, Android 4.1. It also features a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display, 8MP camera, 2MP front-facing camera, NFC, Bluetooth 3.0, 2100mAh battery and software enhancements like Smart Stay, S Beam, Popup Play.

The Galaxy Pop is currently available in a Korea for 700,000 Won ($650 USD). Samsung is silent on international availability or pricing. we will update when we receive word.