Author Archive: henry

Every so often we all had the experience where we wished we could record a telephone conversation for one reason or another, be it evidence, security, proof of record, and sometimes just a very funny conversation, as well as a multitude of other reasons. Call recorders have been out there for nearly as long as smart phones have been in existence; however, this kind of functionality is now available in a fully or even semi-automatic format to prevent a user having to fumble around to start a call recording in the middle of a conversation.

Automatic Call Recorder is the highly unoriginal but very apt description for the application that provides this incredibly useful functionality. It allows its users to record any phone call if they so wish, or even allowing them to set up exactly which calls they wish to have ignored or those that must be recorded and saved.

At the completion of each recorded call the user will have the option of adding notes or sharing the conversation. On Android versions 3.0 and over the app offers full integration with Dropbox as well as Google Drive in order to synchronise saved conversations to cloud storage.

The developer generally recommends that users first try out it’s free version before purchasing a fully featured paid app, since its call recording function remains incompatible to certain handsets which may result in recordings that suffers from inferior sound quality. It offers the ability to record from different audio sources or even utilise its auto-on speaker mode to overcome any potential voice quality or recording issues.

All recorded calls are automatically stored in its Inbox; however, users can at any time change the Save To target folder to include external SD cards. Users can determine a preset size for its Inbox, with the possible number of saved recordings limited only by the size of the user’s available device memory. Users can even opt to activate its Call Summary Menu to provide a number of options that will appear at the end of each recorded conversation.

The above-mentioned are just a few of the available options since the app offers a near endless variety of customisable settings that will cater for just about any pre-determinable eventuality.

The most oft heard objection against owning Windows OS’d phones is most certainly not the operating system which has proven to be quite stable and user-friendly, it was simply a lack of depth in its featured app selection when compared to that found on the virtual shelves of iOS and Android App stores. This objection can as of late be laid to rest, since the situation regarding lack in variety of selection has been comprehensively overcome in the last couple of months, with a mass influx of some of the best content available anywhere in the mobile market. The second most popular objection is the lack of a full feature set compared to the offerings found on its two main rivals in the mobile market. At the time it was largely a factor of it being the newest OS, and as such its marketplace received reduced attention from developers since their main concern was to get a fully featured version in the two competition stores. This too has changed as is clearly apparent in the apps discussed below, which represents some of the best quality to be found anywhere.

Microsoft Arrow Launcher for android delivers an excellent barebones skinned interface for those preferring an alternative to the standard bloated Android deliverance from most manufacturers aside from Google’s Nexus Smartphones. The app, designed to simplify any user experience, seems to have struck a sympathetic chord with android users since its launch has seen in excess of 1 million downloads. The message comes across clearly that users prefer to bloat their own devices without any assistance from smart phone manufacturers loading useless and undesirable content. It offers a clear simple design that provides easy to all apps, while offering extremely usable background choices and assistive reminders.

Movie Moments, an app originally meant for Windows 8.1 mobile devices, became equally applicable on PCs featuring our Windows 8.1 OS, unsurprisingly the PC version offers a little more functionality than its mobile peer. However, the mobile version allows its users to quickly and easily create and edit fun one-minute videos, resplendent with background music and titles. Its task, made slightly easier on larger screened device still offers full functionality even on reduced acreage screens.

Modern Western civilised society operates on the premise that its inhabitants choosing to partake in all the many benefits offered by its near endless technological advances are required to pay for them. However, in many instances inhabitants unnecessarily place themselves under tremendous financial stress due to peer pressure, below are two methods to alleviate some of those financial stresses that you as an inhabitant of Western civilised society might be paying for unnecessarily.

Alfred home security IP cam application now delivers personal home video surveillance in an entirely affordable way, preventing you from having to splurge a couple of hundred bucks to acquire a home security surveillance system. All it requires to operate is a cheap old phone with an operational camera that you might have chucked in the back of a drawer somewhere, and Alfred comes to the rescue. The creators focused on making surveillance and security via their Alfred app as cheap as possible by utilising the user’s existing hardware, with further assistance from a setup process that is simplicity itself.

The only items required is your new daily phone, the Alfred app, and your old phone, together with a valid Gmail account to use for its login. The app then uses the camera on your golden oldie phone as a security cam, while your daily phone serves as the viewer. This is doubly effective since even the oldest cameras on mobile phones are superior to all but the most expensive IP cams, insofar as video quality is concerned. The Alfred surveillance app allows the setting of multiple cameras and viewers, with users able to switch between individual cameras in under three seconds.

In a further money-saving move, a new android app now provides you with the opportunity to win one paid app for free each day. The new app, titled Promo Codes offer each day’s winning members a gratis promo code that allows them to receive a paid app of their choice at no additional cost to themselves. Even if you fail to win, you will receive a link to the Google Play Store’s paid section to view what you could have won.

Once users have downloaded and installed the Promo Codes app they can click on a button reading, “I’m feeling lucky” to reveal the lucky winners and losers in just an instant. Users receive just one opportunity to win each day, fortunately tomorrow is just around the corner. Its current inventory of paid apps for free, includes top end titles such as Franco Kernel Updater, Nova Launcher, Today Calendar Pro, Relay for Reddit, Impressions, Focus, Shuttle, Progression, as well as Twee.

At the start of 2016, gamers are presented with brilliant new possibilities due to the efforts of a slew of top line developers adding incredibly high quality content to the virtual shelves of online mobile gaming stores. The games discussed below represent the best of the best, breaking new ground in graphics, storyline, and player control, offering higher levels of interactivity and far greater bang for your buck in mobile video gaming entertainment.

Disney Magic Kingdoms is another highly anticipated upcoming release from Disney and will be available on Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. The children and now adults entertainment giant Disney has for generations been known for its out of this world attractions and resorts, and soon it offers players the ability to build their own Magic Kingdoms on smart phones and tablet devices. The new Disney title is according to company resources expected to release early in this year. Fans can look forward to interacting with legendary iconic characters, or completing quests in order to save their theme park from evil villains while building up their very own theme park entertainment attractions.

The latest and perhaps one of the greatest yet survivalist MMORPG games, Durango offers players a look at a world based on dinosaurs coexisting with humans, where players in order to survive will need to build, hunt, as well as develop their tribes in an open world framework. Durango became one of the most anticipated games and a of years ago after a teaser trailer; however, it went silent for a while but has now started to resurface offering newly released information and a number of screenshots of this stunningly visualed new game.

twofold inc. will soon deliver to players a brand spanking new puzzle game from the creators of the renowned strategy title Rymdkapsel. Players must not let the minimalistic appearance and simplicity of twofold inc fool them, since this famous indie team has in the past on several occasions displayed the exact know-how to create quality gaming entertainment. In twofold inc, players start scrolling through a playing field in order to make a path with a clear the way by unravelling tiles.

This week introduces a new app willing to assist its users in getting out of unpleasant situations and appointments by providing solid reasons to create convincing excuses for avoiding an undesirable or unpleasant meeting. If you wish to be more involved and engaged in the community you chose to live in, this app will assist you in doing so, or if you just want to brush up and be aware of what’s going on in the world around you.

Gotta Go! On occasion, everyone experiences moments where they wish they had a plausible excuse to extricate themselves from an unpleasant or awkward situation or meeting. Gotta Go! Is your answer and Universal provider of plausible excuses, offering its users the ability to schedule texts and calls for all types of occasions; however, first you will need to get the creative juices flowing. Users can link specific contact names to the required excuse in order to provide your “emergency “situation with the required level of plausibility. It is currently only available on iTunes with the creation of an Android app largely dependent on its popularity.

Tack provides its users with a location centric texting service that assists its users in engaging with local communities in their area. It keeps users in contact with occurrences taking place in the immediate surroundings, including training places, as well as with other community members post regarding places in your locality. Over and above the fact that the app assists its users to keep track of the best events near them, at also assist in finding other resources such as plumbers, babysitters, packages, or lost pets. Business owners are able to post advertisements, but the main aim is to into cohesive cooperative groups via open communication channels, it is available on both iOS,and Android.

News Pro, is one of Microsoft’s latest additions and unlike the feature laden Mimicker Alarm it is a pure barebones newsreader for iOS that stands in direct competition to Apple News and similar news accrual apps. As with any logical newsreader its users can select their preferred newsfeed categories that is returned to them via a top 10 and highlights sections.

Considering the rather expansive lead Google enjoys in the sheer volume of apps in its play store, it still experiences a disparate income generation when directly compared to Apple. Android users, specifically gamers are currently reaping fantastic rewards from Google and all its developers’ efforts to catch up with Apple insofar as income generated from its Play Store. Resultantly, on a daily basis vast numbers of truly superior products are flooding the Play Store’s virtual shelves and the games discussed below represent the best of their efforts.

Cavernaut presents mobile gamers with a brand-new minimalistic puzzle adventure that challenges them to pilot their ship through a maze of tunnels, where success allows them to collect various rewards. Repetitive boredom is kept well at bay by a massive selection of randomly generated level maps that ensures each played game remains different and individual from the previous one. Game controls offer players an intuitive user-friendly, quick and easy to understand user interface. Play remains interesting and varied by offering access to five different map areas, with each area delivering play of an increased difficulty level to keep play challenging and highly entertaining without becoming overly difficult. Considering its retro styled artwork, its graphics and animations are well above reasonable levels of acceptability. It is available on Android and iOS at $1.99, and the best news is the game neither offers nor requires any in-app purchases.

Call of Champions is one of the newer generations of MOBAs that delivers play via straight up battle that sees two opposing teams of three players each matched against one another to see who first gains control of the map. Individual matches last approximately five minutes each; however, players are free to engage in an unlimited number of sequential matches without having to fork out any fees. The game features 15 unique champions that players need to unlock, where players can choose from a broad range of customising features to individualise and empower each champion via a range of available talents they can learn. Each match delivers gut clenching entertainment value with the action appears more real due to its excellent graphics.

Somewhere in the foreseeable future, Apple Pay users might never again require their ATM cards in order to withdraw cash amounts from ATMs, their only requirements to successfully transact a withdraw at any of the participating bank’s ATMs would be to have Apple Pay activated on their iOS device.

According to a report by TechCrunch there are already a number of banks within the US that are involved in a cooperative effort to integrate Apple’s proprietary NFC-enabled mobile based wallet services into their ATMs to provide card-less instant transactions for withdrawals made at their automatic tellers.

Wells Fargo issued a confirmation that they have been working towards finding a technology solution that would allow them to hook into Apple digital wallets, by utilising NFC on mobile devices to do away with the customary plastic card during the ATM transaction. Wells Fargo currently offers Android Pay as its only mobile digital wallet; however, possible integration onto Apple Pay is a very distinct possibility as the bank is investigating into a variety of mobile wallets with the purpose of evaluating those that may be appropriate for their customers.

Bank of America is another one of the collaborators into incorporating Apple Pay support on its ATMs, they did however not confirmed Apple Pay integration, but rather their current development of a similar card-less ATM service. Associated Press confirmed via an earlier report that Chase will make similar upgrades to the bank’s ATMs which would allow for card-free withdrawal transactions. This however would only be offered via the company’s official mobile app, which may later be extended to include digital wallet services like Android Pay as well as Apple Pay.

Speculation predicts that Apple Pay integration with bank ATMs could fully do away with any requirement for the customary plastic ATM cards, since it would be replaced by the client’s iPhone situated close to an NFC enabled ATM terminal. The transaction would then be authorised via a pass code or even a Touch ID fingerprint authentication on their iPhones.
The integration will prevent card skimming as well as fraudulent transactions, in addition to the newfound convenience to the user.

Since Apple relaxed its tight controls over the contents and development of new apps entering their App Store, it has seen a very welcome newfound spurt of growth since it nearly fell to the threat of being left behind the likes of android insofar as content volumes were concerned. Their newfound freedom allowed developers to come up with a whole new slew of never before seen iOS content, which greatly benefited the variety of options available to iPhone and iPad users. The apps forming part of the discussion below clearly benefited from these newfound freedoms as well, it is now up to iOS users to vote with their downloads.

Save Mars is her brand-new fast paced arcade mobile game that challenges layers to disintegrate rockets and asteroids threatening the destruction of Mars. This new gaming skills test require players to speedily identify the wheat from the chaff before blowing up any new threats to the planet, with the ultimate goal being to finally save the possibly doomed red planet from utter destruction. A variety of objects will come flying planet wards where they will need to be blown up while still in trajectory, with blue asteroids destroyed by just a single tap, while the tougher rockets require a double tap before being taken out. The trick comes in avoiding the automatic reaction of unwittingly destroying any red asteroids since they are part of the good guys and destroying them comes at a stiff penalty. Top your previous best scores before Mars gets destroyed again.

Kung Fu Panda: Battle of Destiny saw its release on iOS yesterday just before the premiere of DreamWorks Animation’s much anticipated Kung Fu Panda 3 on 29 January 2016. Battle of Destiny offers players a shot at a card-based battle game that includes all the characters of the highly popular computer animated series of comedy filled martial arts forms that sees the bumbling Kung Fu Panda that defeat his enemies in a variety of methods that induce newfound sidesplitting comedy sequences by the minute.

Each week sees the shelves of app stores receive new batches of mobile games just released into the wilderness of the already flooded market. The great upshot of this flooding of new games apps is the continual competition for recognition by kids of all ages from 3 to 63, which causes the developers to try new and innovative approaches that often seems to be substantial improvements over the originating titles that first appeared on consoles and PCs. The discussion below highlights another number of highly worthwhile new arrivals.

In the not too distant past, prior to Disney’s acquisition and subsequent closure of the much-adored LucasArts, there existed a browser and mobile game close to full completion would potentially have vanished forever. Enter the brand-new Star Wars: the Force Awakens which shot the brand back into its much-deserved limelight and in the process excited new and old fans from all over the globe. The game would arrive to an audience that welcomed it with open arms sporting complex main game mechanics unlike other games seem to date in this series. Players would have newfound ability to capture and there after control enemy outposts making it their own trade resource harvest that could also be utilised to build weapons, fulfilling most of the functions of an MMO.

Rayark quickly built a reputation for the company throughout Western markets after the release of its Triple-A grade mobile game called Implosion: Never Lose Hope that was followed up by ambitiously beautiful excellence in mobile gaming titles like Deemo during the past holidays, Rayark secretively hinted at a number of new titles the company looks to release somewhere during 2016. The new scheduled releases will include the promising blockbuster Soul of Eden, which they’ve recently released a cinematic preview video clip that excluded any game play footage, along with artwork visuals, and a brief description. The latest cinematic trailer teaser hinted at a summer 2016 window to release. Soul of Eden will deliver another brilliant RTS game with overtures of MOBA featuring CCG in its real-time battles.

Unlike new games, productivity, social media, photo, camera, and audiophile apps the newest and latest is in this specific set of circumstances 99% of the time not the greatest solution in guarding your deepest darkest financial and selfie secrets on your latest darling new smart device’s data files and operating system. As has become abundantly apparent with a slew of unwilling and unknown celebrity revelations in the recent past, smart device security needs to be made rock-solid by tried and proven methods from development companies beyond reproach in the quality of their product. The below security apps are shining examples of rock-solid security defences in the online mobile world and would be one of the most worthwhile contributions to download and install on any smart online device.

CM Security from developers Cheetah Mobile delivers an award-winning option in online security that delivers the best in available malware protection to any Android device. Cheetah Mobile is a security research company well-known for its compilation of credible security reports on the latest state of any Android security issues and all scam related breaches, it has delivered one of the most comprehensive and fastest dedicated apps on the market to date.

360 Security provides users with a long-standing and highly popular antivirus app for Android devices that will deliver all the bells and whistles any user may wish for to protect their phones. As has become the norm first and foremost it has an extremely powerful antivirus engine that features the ability to scan the complete device automatically along with updating security and antivirus definitions automatically. Any new installation immaterial of where a user may downloaded from will pass through its comprehensive real-time protection scan before the app becomes active on any phone. As an added boon it even has a brilliant system cleaner that clears it all those old junk files that pile up to make a phone slower.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware delivers one of the best privacy managers imaginable from a company that built its well-deserved reputation for providing one of the most unintrusive and lightweight PC protection toolsets available anywhere. It’s totally free of charge Android app similarly trades off tons of features for a much more pertinent focus on user-friendliness. Aside from its top-class anti-malware protection delivers one of the best privacy managers that not only scans for malware and antivirus but will also monitor and scan apps that behave suspiciously.