The advantages of this launcher is a lot of cool widgets, such as facebook, twitter, calendar and all these widgets can be given a different theme is different, after all, we can replace the dock and the icon is very cool.
Showing posts with label Applications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Applications. Show all posts
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Launcher Pro Plus
This time I'm posting about the launcher which is a continuation of the post ADW EX Launcher, Launcher Pro Plus now discuss
The advantages of this launcher is a lot of cool widgets, such as facebook, twitter, calendar and all these widgets can be given a different theme is different, after all, we can replace the dock and the icon is very cool.
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The advantages of this launcher is a lot of cool widgets, such as facebook, twitter, calendar and all these widgets can be given a different theme is different, after all, we can replace the dock and the icon is very cool.
Monday, June 11, 2012
MineBuilder
We have been checking out a game called MineBuilder for awhile now which is essentially a Minecraft-style game that is actually very similar to actual Minecraft. This game has been out for about 2 months and through quite a few updates MineBuilder has come a long way from it's inception.
MineBuilder brings the flavor of Minecraft to Android while we all wait for the official Minecraft game to be launched. While the official game will be exclusive to the Xperia Play for a short period of time when it's launched, the rest of the Android world will have to wait. MineBuilder is looking more and more promising as an alternative while you wait for the official Minecraft Pocket Edition to come to your device.
Controls are a couple of on-screen buttons and a virtual joystick which actually works fairly well. It comes with a lot of the features that you would expect to find in Minecraft or a game similar to it such as crafting, building structures, cave system (work in progress), monsters, texture packs and of course mining and minerals. One really great feature though is that you can actually import your Minecraft map into MineBuilder. Current unsupported blocks will just be replaced by air.
Features:
- Import Minecraft maps (unsupported blocks will be replaced by air)
- Place/Remove blocks
- Crafting
- Monsters
- Texture packs
So if you are looking to get your fix of mobile Minecraft until the official Pocket Edition is launched for your device, you may want to check MineBuilder out. You can pick this up off the Android Market for $1.41. Now that the game is more polished and less raw like it was when it first came out, Minecraft fans should enjoy it.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Skype for Android
The service allows users to communicate with peers by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet. Phone calls may be placed to recipients on the traditional telephone networks. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free of charge, while calls to landline telephones and mobile phones are charged via a debit-based user account system. Skype has also become popular for its additional features, including file transfer, and videoconferencing. Competitors include SIP and H.323-based services, such as Empathy, Linphone, Ekiga as well as the Google Talk service.
Skype has 663 million registered users as of September 2011. The network is operated by Microsoft, which has its Skype division headquarters in Luxembourg. Most of the development team and 44% of the overall employees of the division are situated in the offices of Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.
Unlike most VoIP services, Skype is a hybrid peer-to-peer and client–server system. It makes use of background processing on computers running Skype software. Skype's original proposed name (Sky Peer-to-Peer) reflects this fact.
Some network administrators have banned Skype on corporate, government, home, and education networks, citing reasons such as inappropriate usage of resources, excessive bandwidth usage, and security concerns.
Skype was founded in 2003 by Janus Friis from Denmark and Niklas Zennström from Sweden. The Skype software was developed by Estonians Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn, who together with Janus and Niklas were also behind the peer-to-peer file sharing software Kazaa. In August 2003, the first public beta version was released.
Registered users of Skype are identified by a unique Skype Name, and may be listed in the Skype directory. Skype allows these registered users to communicate through both instant messaging and voice chat. Voice chat allows telephone calls between pairs of users and conference calling, and uses a proprietary audio codec. Skype's text chat client allows group chats, emoticons, storing chat history and editing of previous messages. Offline messages were implemented in a beta of version 5, but removed after a few weeks without notification. The usual features familiar to instant messaging users — user profiles, online status indicators, and so on — are also included.
The Online Number, a.k.a. SkypeIn, service allows Skype users to receive calls on their computers dialed by conventional phone subscribers to a local Skype phone number; local numbers are available for Australia, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. A Skype user can have local numbers in any of these countries, with calls to the number charged at the same rate as calls to fixed lines in the country.
Video conferencing between two users was introduced in January 2006 for the Windows and Mac OS X platform clients. Skype 2.0 for Linux, released on 13 March 2008, also features support for video conferencing. Version 5 beta 1 for Windows, released 13 May 2010, offers free video conferencing with up to five people.
Skype for Windows, starting with version 3.6.0.216, supports "High Quality Video" with quality and features, e.g. full-screen and screen-in-screen modes, similar to those of mid-range videoconferencing systems. Skype audio conferences currently support up to 25 people at a time, including the host.
Skype does not provide the ability to call emergency numbers such as 911 in the United States and Canada, 999 in the United Kingdom and many other countries, 111 in New Zealand, 000 in Australia, or 112 in Europe. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled that, for the purposes of section 255 of the Telecommunications Act, Skype is not an "interconnected VoIP provider". As a result, the U.S. National Emergency Number Association recommends that all VoIP users have an analog line available as a backup.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Android's Horloger for Windows 7
Horloger is a standalone gadget that puts a great looking clock on your Windows 7 and Windows Vista desktop. it comes in 2 sizes, 4 styles, many different languages and works on both 32- and 64 bit systems. Just double-click the executable, make some adjustment settings to your preferences and you're good to go.
Horloger is an attractive replacement clock that takes the style of an old analogue flip flock by default. There are a number of other skins available, including a miniature version of the main theme, but this is the most impressive looking one. The clock can be configured to start automatically with Windows and you can choose whether minutes, second, or milliseconds should be displayed, and toggle the display and format of the date as well.
To ensure that you can always tell what the time is you can choose to have the clock always appear on top of other open programs and Windows. This may mean that important areas of your screen get covered up, so the option to make the clock slightly transparent is handy. The date bar can also be made transparent or hidden altogether if you would like to reclaim the screen space.
Horloger usually use in HTC Android phone, such as : HTC Desire S, but now Horloger can be installed on your windows 7.
Screenshot :
Monday, June 4, 2012
Instagram for Android
Instagram is a free photo sharing program launched in October 2010 that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filter to it, and then share it on a variety of social networking services, including Instagram's own. A distinctive feature confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images, in contrast to the 4:3 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras.
Instagram was initially supported on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch; in April 2012, the company added support for Android camera phones running 2.2 (Froyo) or higher. It is distributed via the iTunes App Store and Google Play.
In its largest acquisition deal up to date, Facebook acquired Instagram (with its 13 employees) for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock in April 2012, with plans to keep it independently managed.
Instagram development began in San Francisco, when Kevin Systrom and Michel "Mike" Krieger chose to focus their multi-featured HTML5 check-in project Burbn on mobile photography.
On March 5, 2010, Systrom closed a $500,000 seed funding round from Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz while working on Burbn.
The product launched in Apple's App Store on October 6, 2010. Shortly after the launch, Josh Riedel joined the company as Community Manager.[citation needed] Shayne Sweeney joined in November 2010 as an engineer and Jessica Zollman was hired as a Community Evangelist in August 2011.
In January 2011, Instagram added hashtags to help users discover both photos and each other. In September, version 2.0 went live in the App Store (iOS). It included new and live filters, instant tilt shift, high resolution photos, optional borders, one click rotation and an updated icon.
On February 2, 2011, it was announced that Instagram raised $7 million in Series A funding from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D'Angelo. The deal valued Instagram at around $25 million.
On April 3, 2012, Instagram for Android was released. That same week, Instagram raised $50 million from venture capitalists for a share of the company that valued it at $500 million.
On April 12, 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. The deal, which was made just before Facebook was scheduled to go public, cost Facebook about a quarter of the cash-on-hand they had as of the end of 2011; the deal was for a company characterized as having "lots of buzz but no business model", and the price was contrasted with the $35 million Yahoo! paid for Flickr in 2005, a website which has since become among the 50 most popular in the world. Mark Zuckerberg noted that Facebook was "committed to building and growing Instagram independently", in contrast to its common practice of, as CNNMoney.com put it, buying "hot startups, kill[ing] their products, and redeploy[ing] their staff on other projects". According to multiple reports, the deal netted Instagram CEO Systrom $400 million based on his ownership stake in the business.
The exact purchase price was $300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock.
A fake version of the app, classified by Sophos products as Andr/Boxer-F, is available for download from several unofficial Russian websites. The malware sends messages to premium numbers, causing huge bills to be run up. The fake app also includes multiple copies of the Russian photo meme "Witness from Fryazino".
By December 2010, Instagram had one million registered users. In June 2011 Instagram announced it had five million users and it passed ten million in September of the same year. In April 2012, it was announced that over 30 million accounts were set up on Instagram.
Instagram announced that 100 million photos had been uploaded to its service as of July 2011. This total reached 150 million in August 2011.
Instagram's new Android version in Google Play crossed more than one million downloads within 12 hours.
Instagram has recently made headlines with its efforts to keep the "Insta-universe" as a positive space and has prohibited any hashtags or photos that promote self harm.
There are basic Terms of Use that Instagram users must follow, including an age requirement of 13 years or older, restrictions against posting nude, partially nude, or sexually suggestive photos, and responsibility for one's account and all activity conducted with it.
There are also proprietary rights in content on Instagram. Instagram does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, content) that you post on or through the Instagram Services.
A graphic design firm in Italy recently built a prototype for a physical digital camera, called the Socialmatic, with the housing designed to look like the Instagram icon. The camera is designed with 16 GB of storage, WiFi and Bluetooth capability, the ability to interface with the Instagram app, and produce color prints. The project (apparently unrelated to, nor officially commissioned or approved by, Instagram) seeks crowdfunding via Indiegogo, in order to be made available as a product.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
AVGPro 2.10 Antivirus for Android
- Name : Anti Virus Pro 2.10.1 APK Android Apps
- Version : 2.10.1
- File Format : apk
- File Size : 2.1 MB
- Developer : AVG Mobilation
- Platform : Android
- Category : Application, Communication, Security, Antivirus
- Required : Android 1.5 and up
- Compatible Devices : Android Phone & Tablet
- Screen Resolution : -
- Description :
AVG Antivirus Pro for Smartphones/Tablets protects you from harmful apps & SMS
AVG Mobilation™ Antivirus Pro for Smartphones/Tablets protects you from harmful apps & SMS
AVG Mobilation™ Antivirus Pro is a mobile security solution that not only helps protect your phone from viruses, malware, spyware & online exploitation in real-time, but also offers a suite of features to help keep your privacy, personal data and online identity safe.
Download the AVG Mobilation Antivirus Pro app to:
√ Scan apps, settings, files, and media for viruses and malware in real time
√ Find/locate your lost or stolen phone via Google Maps™
√ In case of theft, lock and wipe your device to keep private data safe
√ Kill tasks that slow your phone down
√ Browse the web safely and securely
AVG Mobilation™ focuses specifically on the mobile environment and is a part of the trusted family of AVG® branded security technologies that caters to over 100 million active users worldwide.
With the AVG Mobilation Antivirus Pro app, you’ll receive effective, easy-to-use virus and malware protection, as well as a real-time scanner, phone locator, task killer, app locker and local device wipe through the remote management service.
An in-depth look at the AVG Mobilation Antivirus Pro features that help:
√ Give you peace of mind no matter how you download your apps or games
√ Protect against malicious apps from viruses, malware and spyware
√ Identify unsecure device settings and advises on how to fix them.
√ Ensure contacts, bookmarks and text messages are secure and safe
√ Check media files for malicious software and mobile security threats
√ Protect you from phishing attacks
√ Run daily, weekly, or on demand scans
√ Scan apps, settings, files, and media for viruses and malware in real time
√ Find/locate your lost or stolen phone via Google Maps™
√ In case of theft, lock and wipe your device to keep private data safe
√ Kill tasks that slow your phone down
√ Browse the web safely and securely
AVG Mobilation™ focuses specifically on the mobile environment and is a part of the trusted family of AVG® branded security technologies that caters to over 100 million active users worldwide.
With the AVG Mobilation Antivirus Pro app, you’ll receive effective, easy-to-use virus and malware protection, as well as a real-time scanner, phone locator, task killer, app locker and local device wipe through the remote management service.
An in-depth look at the AVG Mobilation Antivirus Pro features that help:
√ Give you peace of mind no matter how you download your apps or games
√ Protect against malicious apps from viruses, malware and spyware
√ Identify unsecure device settings and advises on how to fix them.
√ Ensure contacts, bookmarks and text messages are secure and safe
√ Check media files for malicious software and mobile security threats
√ Protect you from phishing attacks
√ Run daily, weekly, or on demand scans
Anti-theft protection and Phone Locator:
√ Ability to locate your lost or stolen mobile phone and get help with finding it via Google Maps™
√ Ability turn your phone GPS on remotely and have the device send its location using GPS
√ Lock your phone remotely via our online remote management account or by sending SMS to your phone to protect your data and privacy
√ Set a lock screen message to help the locator find you
√ Make your device ring even if your phone is on silent mode
Safe Web Surfing:
√ Search, shop and social network with peace of mind knowing your identity, and personal data are secure from phishing and malware while surfing the web
√ Scans the web site addresses to see if they are harmful sites. If it detects something suspicious, it will redirect you to AVG Mobilation’s “Safe Page” should it find the URL address to be untrustworthy
√ Ability to locate your lost or stolen mobile phone and get help with finding it via Google Maps™
√ Ability turn your phone GPS on remotely and have the device send its location using GPS
√ Lock your phone remotely via our online remote management account or by sending SMS to your phone to protect your data and privacy
√ Set a lock screen message to help the locator find you
√ Make your device ring even if your phone is on silent mode
Safe Web Surfing:
√ Search, shop and social network with peace of mind knowing your identity, and personal data are secure from phishing and malware while surfing the web
√ Scans the web site addresses to see if they are harmful sites. If it detects something suspicious, it will redirect you to AVG Mobilation’s “Safe Page” should it find the URL address to be untrustworthy
Task killer:
√ Kill tasks that slow down or freeze up your device
App locker and mobile privacy:
√ Lock apps to protect your privacy and safety or lock your device setting to secure your device configuration
Local wipe:
√ Ability to completely wipe contacts, text messages, photos, browser history, calendar, format SD Card, and restore mobile device to factory settings
√Manually select specific data and information from your mobile device that you want deleted, such as synced email accounts, apps, and specific files, using the Local Wipe advanced feature
√ Kill tasks that slow down or freeze up your device
App locker and mobile privacy:
√ Lock apps to protect your privacy and safety or lock your device setting to secure your device configuration
Local wipe:
√ Ability to completely wipe contacts, text messages, photos, browser history, calendar, format SD Card, and restore mobile device to factory settings
√Manually select specific data and information from your mobile device that you want deleted, such as synced email accounts, apps, and specific files, using the Local Wipe advanced feature
Tune-up (beta version) Battery & Storage optimization:
√ Battery power saver notifies you when your battery is below the level you indicated and lets you turn-off functions not in use in order to save power.
√ Storage optimization indicates internal and SD card usage and helps optimize storage space on your phone. This lets you move apps between the SD Card and internal storage with the help of a list of apps sorted by size and location.
√ Storage optimization indicates internal and SD card usage and helps optimize storage space on your phone. This lets you move apps between the SD Card and internal storage with the help of a list of apps sorted by size and location.
V2.10.1 update:
Improved Tune-Up:
Lists resources consumption to help optimizing the mobile device’s resources:
Battery power saver notifies when battery is below specified threshold and lets turn-off not in use functions
Storage Space saver sorts applications by size and location and allows uninstall or move apps to SD card to optimize space.
Version 2.10 of the app will now appear with the AVG logo instead of the blue/white capsule on phone’s app launcher.
Improved Tune-Up:
Lists resources consumption to help optimizing the mobile device’s resources:
Battery power saver notifies when battery is below specified threshold and lets turn-off not in use functions
Storage Space saver sorts applications by size and location and allows uninstall or move apps to SD card to optimize space.
Version 2.10 of the app will now appear with the AVG logo instead of the blue/white capsule on phone’s app launcher.
Languages supported:
English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Italian, Polish, Hebrew, Czech, and Dutch.
English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Italian, Polish, Hebrew, Czech, and Dutch.
Android Market:
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Linkedin For Android
LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) is a professional social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. As of 9 February 2012, LinkedIn reports more than 150 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech and Polish. Quantcast reports LinkedIn has 21.4 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 47.6 million globally. In June 2011, LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors, up 63 percent from a year earlier and surpassing MySpace. LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD".
LinkedIn's CEO is Jeff Weiner, previously a Yahoo! Inc. executive. The company was founded by Reid Hoffman and founding team members from PayPal and Socialnet.com (Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke, Stephen Beitzel, David Eves, Ian McNish, Yan Pujante, and Chris Saccheri).
Founder Reid Hoffman, previously CEO of LinkedIn, is now Chairman of the Board. Bhushan Kasvekar is Vice President of Products. LinkedIn is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in Omaha, Chicago, New York, London and Dublin. It is funded by Sequoia Capital, Greylock, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and the European Founders Fund. LinkedIn reached profitability in March 2006. Through January 2011, the company had received a total of $103 million of investment.
In 2003, Sequoia Capital led the Series A investment in the company. In June 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion.
In 2010, LinkedIn opened a European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, received a $20 million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC at a valuation of approximately $2 billion, and announced its first acquisition, Mspoke, and improved its 1% premium subscription ratio.
In October 2010 Silicon Valley Insider ranked the company No. 10 on its Top 100 List of most valuable start ups. As of December 2010, the company was valued at $1.575 billion in private markets.
It was reported that LinkedIn earned $154.6 million dollars in advertising revenue alone in 2011. This number was actually higher than that of Twitter who earned $139.5 million dollars respectively.
In early January 2012, LinkedIn announced it would be expanding their offices into the Financial District of San Francisco. LinkedIn expects to move into their 57,120 square foot office space sometime in the Spring of 2012.
LinkedIn’s fourth-quarter earnings have recently soared. LinkedIn’s shares rose 9.5% to $83.68 in premarket trading. The increase in value is due to its increase in success in the social media world.
On February 24, 2012, LinkedIn announced it's acquisition of the start-up Rapportive, which created a browser plug-in that takes contact information from social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, and places them into Google's Gmail. LinkedIn has not stated yet how they will use the Rapportive's technology and talent.
In early May, LinkedIn announced it's 2012 Q1 numbers were up 101% to $188.5 million compared to $93.9 million in Q1 of 2011. Revenue for Q2 has been estimated to be between $210 to $215 million.
On May 3, 2012, LinkedIn announced it had acquired SlideShare, deemed "the YouTube of slide shows" for $119 million. It was stated that the purchase was done to give LinkedIn members a way to discover people through content. Slideshare attracts 29 million monthly visitors.
One purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people with whom they have some level of relationship, called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. However, if the invitee selects "I don't know" or "Spam", this counts against the inviter. If the inviter gets too many of such responses, the account may be restricted or closed.
This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:
A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact.
Users can upload their resume or design their own profile in order to showcase work and community experiences.
It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.
Users can now follow different companies and can get notification about the new joining and offers available.
Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs which they would like to apply for.
The "gated-access approach" (where contact with any professional requires either a preexisting relationship, or the intervention of a contact of theirs) is intended to build trust among the service's users. LinkedIn participates in the EU's International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles.
The feature LinkedIn Answers, similar to Yahoo! Answers, allows users to ask questions for the community to answer. This feature is free and the main difference from the latter is that questions are potentially more business-oriented, and the identity of the people asking and answering questions is known.
Another LinkedIn feature is LinkedIn Polls. In December 2011, LinkedIn announced that they are rolling out polls to their one million groups.
In mid-2008, LinkedIn launched LinkedIn DirectAds as a form of sponsored advertising.
In October 2008, LinkedIn revealed plans to opening its social network of 30 million professionals globally as a potential sample for business-to-business research. It is testing a potential social-network revenue model-research that to some appears more promising than advertising.
Applications
In October 2008, LinkedIn enabled an "applications platform" that allows other online services to be embedded within a member's profile page. Among the initial applications were an Amazon Reading List that allows LinkedIn members to display books they are reading, a connection to Tripit, and a Six Apart, WordPress and TypePad application that allows members to display their latest blog postings within their LinkedIn profile.
In November 2010, LinkedIn allowed businesses to list products and services on company profile pages; it also permitted LinkedIn members to "recommend" products and services and write reviews.
Mobile
A mobile version of the site was launched in February 2008, which gives access to a reduced feature set over a mobile phone. The mobile service is available in six languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.
In January 2011, LinkedIn acquired CardMunch, a mobile app maker that scans business cards and converts into contacts. LinkedIn plans to integrate this functionality into their services in the near future. In August 2011, LinkedIn revamped its mobile applications on the iPhone, Android and HTML5. Mobile page views of the application have increased roughly 400% year over year according to CEO Jeff Weiner.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Winamp for Android
Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features. Winamp was developed by American programmer Justin Frankel and Russian programmer Dmitry Boldyrev, and its popularity grew quickly, along with the developing trend of MP3 file sharing.
Playback formats
Winamp supports music playback using MP3, MIDI, MOD, MPEG-1 audio layers 1 and 2, AAC, M4A, FLAC, WAV and WMA. Winamp was one of the first common music players on Windows to support playback of Ogg Vorbis by default. It supports gapless playback for MP3 and AAC, and ReplayGain for volume leveling across tracks. CD support includes playing and import music from audio CDs, optionally with CD-Text, and burning music to CDs. The standard version limits maximum burn speed and datarate; the "Pro" version removes these limitations.
Winamp supports playback of Windows Media Video and Nullsoft Streaming Video. For MPEG Video, AVI and other unsupported video types, Winamp uses Microsoft's DirectShow API for playback, allowing playback of most of the video formats supported by Windows Media Player. 5.1 Surround sound is supported where formats and decoders allow.
Media Library
At installation, Winamp scans the user's system for media files to add to the Media Library database. It supports full Unicode filenames and Unicode metadata for media files. In the Media Library user interface pane, under Local Media, several selectors (Audio, Video, date and frequency) permit display of subsets of media files with greater detail.
Adding album art and track tags
Get Album Art permits retrieval of cover art, and confirmation before adding the image to the database. Autotagging analyzes a track's audio using the Gracenote service and retrieves the song's ID2 and ID3 metadata.
Podcatcher
Winamp can also be used as an RSS media feeds aggregator capable of displaying articles, downloading or playing that same content as streaming media. SHOUTcast Wire provides a directory and RSS subscription system for podcasts.
Media player device support
Winamp has extendable support for portable media players and Mass Storage Compliant devices, Microsoft PlaysForSure and ActiveSync, and syncs unprotected music to the iPod.
Media Monitor
Winamp Media Monitor allows web-based browsing and bookmarking music blog websites and automatically offering for streaming or downloading all MP3 files there. The Media Monitor is preloaded with music blog URLs.
Winamp Remote
Winamp Remote allows remote playback (streaming) of unprotected media files on the user's PC via the Internet. Remote adjusts bitrate based on available bandwidth, and can be controlled by web interface, Wii, PS3, Xbox and mobile phones.
Plug-ins
See also: Plug-in (computing)
In February 1998, Winamp was rewritten as a "general purpose audio player" with a plug-in architecture. This feature was received well by reviewers. Development was early, diverse, and rapid: 66 plugins were published by November 1998. The Winamp software development kit (SDK) allows software developers to create seven different types of plug-ins.
Input: decodes specific file formats.
Output: sends data to specific devices or files.
Visualization: provides sound activated graphics.
DSP/Effect: manipulates audio for special effects.
General Purpose plug-ins add convenience or UI features(Media Library, alarm clock, or pause when logged out).
Media Library plug-ins add functions to the Media Library plug-in.
Portables plug-ins support portable media players.
Plug-in development support increased Winamp's flexibility for, for example, a plethora of specialized plug-ins for game console music files such as NSF, USF, GBS, GSF, SID, VGM, SPC, PSF and PSF2.
Skins
Winamp running on S7Reflex skin.
Skins are bitmap files which alter the aesthetic design of the Winamp graphical user interface (GUI) and can add functionality, with scripting. Winamp published documentation on skin creation in 1998 with the release of Winamp 2, and invited Winamp users to publish skins on Winamp.com. As of 2000 there were nearly 3000 Winamp skins available. The ability to use skins contributed to Winamp's popularity early in MP3 development. With the increasing number of available skins, genres or categories of skins developed, such as "Stereo", "Anime", and "Ugly". Online communities of skin designers such as 1001Skins.com and Skinz.org have contributed thousands of designs; also at GnomeArt. Designers see skins as an opportunity to be creative: nontraditional examples have included Klingon, iPod, and Etch-a-sketch designs.
The Winamp skin format is the most popular, the most commonly adopted by other media player software, and is usable across platforms. One example is the XMMS player for Linux and Unix systems, which can use unmodified Winamp 2 skin files.
Winamp 5 supports two types of skins — "classic" skins designed to Winamp 2 specifications (static collections of bitmap images), and more flexible, freeform "modern" skins per the Winamp 3 specification. Modern skins support true alpha channel transparency, scripting control, a docked toolbar, and other innovations to the user interface.
Initial releases
Winamp was first released in 1997, when Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev, formerly students at the University of Utah, integrated their Windows user interface with the Advanced Multimedia Products "AMP (MP3 Technology)" MP3 file playback engine. The minimalist WinAMP 0.20a was released as freeware on 21 April 1997. Its windowless menubar-only interface showed only play (open), stop, pause, and unpause functions. A file specified on the command line or dropped onto its icon would be played. MP3 decoding was performed by the AMP decoding engine developed by Advanced Multimedia Products co-founder Tomislav Uzelac, which was free for non-commercial use.
WinAMP 0.92 was released as a freeware in May 1997. Within the standard Windows frame and menubar, it had the beginnings of the "classic" Winamp GUI: dark gray rectangle with silver 3D-effect transport buttons, a red/green volume slider, time displayed in a green LED font, with trackname, MP3 bitrate and "mixrate" in green. There was no position bar, and a blank space where the spectrum analyzer and waveform analyzer would later appear. Multiple files on the command line or dropped onto its icon were enqueued in the playlist.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Applications
Applications are usually developed in the Java language using the Android Software Development Kit, but other development tools are available, including a Native Development Kit for applications or extensions in C or C++, Google App Inventor, a visual environment for novice programmers and various cross platform mobile web applications frameworks.
Applications can be acquired by end-users either through a store such as Google Play or the Amazon Appstore, or by downloading and installing the application's APK file from a third-party site.
Google Play
Google Play is an online software store developed by Google for Android devices. An application program ("app") called "Play Store" is preinstalled on most Android devices and allows users to browse and download apps published by third-party developers, hosted on Google Play. As of October 2011, there were more than 500,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from the Play Store as of December 2011 exceeded 10 billion. The operating system itself is installed on 130 million total devices.
Only devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements are allowed to preinstall and access the Play Store. The app filters the list of available applications to those that are compatible with the user's device, and developers may restrict their applications to particular carriers or countries for business reasons.
Google has participated in the Play Store by offering many free applications themselves, including Google Voice, Google Goggles, Gesture Search, Google Translate, Google Shopper, Listen and My Tracks. In August 2010, Google launched "Voice Actions for Android", which allows users to search, write messages, and initiate calls by voice.
Security
Android applications run in a sandbox, an isolated area of the operating system that does not have access to the rest of the system's resources, unless access permissions are granted by the user when the application is installed. Before installing an application, the Play Store displays all required permissions. A game may need to enable vibration, for example, but should not need to read messages or access the phonebook. After reviewing these permissions, the user can decide whether to install the application. The sandboxing and permissions system weakens the impact of vulnerabilities and bugs in applications, but developer confusion and limited documentation has resulted in applications routinely requesting unnecessary permissions, reducing its effectiveness. The complexity of inter-application communication implies Android has a large attack surface.
Several security firms have released antivirus software for Android devices, in particular, AVG Technologies, Avast!, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee and Symantec. This software is ineffective as sandboxing also applies to such applications, limiting their ability to scan the deeper system for threats.
Privacy
Android smartphones have the ability to report the location of Wi-Fi access points, encountered as phone users move around, to build databases containing the physical locations of hundreds of millions of such access points. These databases form electronic maps to locate smartphones, allowing them to run apps like Foursquare, Latitude, Places, and to deliver location-based ads.
Third party monitoring software such as TaintDroid, an academic research-funded project, can, in some cases, detect when personal information is being sent from applications to remote servers.
In March 2012 it was revealed that Android Apps can copy photos without explicit user permission, Google responded they "originally designed the Android photos file system similar to those of other computing platforms like Windows and Mac OS. we're taking another look at this and considering adding a permission for apps to access images. We've always had policies in place to remove any apps [on Google Play] that improperly access your data."
Android software development is the process by which new applications are created for the Android operating system. Applications are usually developed in the Java programming language using the Android Software Development Kit, but other development tools are available. As of April 2011 more than 200,000 applications have been developed for Android, with over 3 billion downloads. The Android platform has also grown to become a favorite among mobile developers. A June 2011 research indicated that over 67% of mobile developers used the platform, at the time of publication.
The Android Developer Challenge was a competition for the most innovative application for Android. Google offered prizes totaling 10 million US dollars, distributed between ADC I and ADC II. ADC I accepted submissions from 2 January to 14 April 2008. The 50 most promising entries, announced on 12 May 2008, each received a $25,000 award to further development. It ended in early September with the announcement of ten teams that received $275,000 each, and ten teams that received $100,000 each. ADC II was announced on 27 May 2009. The first round of the ADC II closed on 6 October 2009. The first-round winners of ADC II comprising the top 200 applications were announced on 5 November 2009. Voting for the second round also opened on the same day and ended on November 25. Google announced the top winners of ADC II on November 30, with SweetDreams, What the Doodle!? and WaveSecure being nominated the overall winners of the challenge.
Source : Android's Applications
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