1. Words with Friends Free – Words with Friends is a fun multiplayer scrabble game. It’s recently gone cross-platform to Android so you can play with even more friends than ever before. The best part is that it’s turn based, so you don’t need to be constantly playing. Just make your move, close the app, and you’ll be notified when your opponent moves. Games commonly occur over a few days, so it’s perfect for playing when you’ve got a few idle minutes to make a move, without having to pay constant attention to your phone. There’s also a pass-and-play option if you just want to play with a friend in the same room.

2. Cube Runner – This ancient game pre-dates the App Store itself but is still a joy to play. Cube Runner was originally a game for hacked devices only, back before Apple even created the App Store. Since then it’s been made officially available through the App Store but still maintains it’s ease of use. You are a simple triangular ship in a world of cubes. Tilt left and right to dodge cubes and rack up points for as long as you can stay alive. Better yet, find a friend with an iPhone and compete for high scores. Cube Runner also has two surprisingly great tracks if you enjoy yourself some techno.

3. Papi Jump – A classic Papi game where you try to set the high score by jumping higher and higher.

Platforms become more sparse as you ascend, making it more difficult to continue onward.

Don’t forget that you can teleport from one side to the other, Pac Man style, to reach a platform. Also has online leaderboards to rank you with the best of the best. Easy to pick up, surprisingly hard to put down.

4. Space Deadbeef – The name will never make sense to us, but the gameplay is great. This is a sidescroller where you’re flying a ship that can fire 10x it’s own mass in missiles.

Targeting is intuitive: just slide your finger over targets to fire chains of missiles. This game came out ages ago and has been begging for more content ever since.

Unfortunately we haven’t seen any additional content, but what’s there is absolutely fun to play. Levels get harder as you repeat them.

5. Paper Toss – Another ultra simple but super fun game. Paper Toss emulates a classic boring work environment in which you’ve got nothing to do but toss a ball of paper into the trash can.

Depending upon how you swipe the screen, the ball of paper will curve to one side or the other. A fan is introduced to change the wind speed and how hard you need to fling it to either side. Score is kept by how many continuous shots you can make. This is another game where you can pick up and play for just 5 minutes, but you’ll have plenty of fun in that short amount of time.

6. Shotgun Free – Surprisingly more of a game than you’d think. Shotgun Free tasks you with moving your iPhone or iPod as if you are cocking a pump-action shotgun, then quickly pulling it back like a recoiling gun. Satisfying cocking and firing sounds ensue, but it’s there’s actually more to it. If you want to unlock different sounding weapons you’ve got to accomplish some sort of task. Perhaps that’s 100 fires, or 10 in-game achievements, such as a particularly fast firing time, or firing 10 shots in a short period of time. It’s actually rather addicting to try to get the motion just right for a split-second shot!

7. Jelly Car – This great game looks like it was drawn with crayons and has completely human made sound effects that will make you smile even if you don’t want to.

Drive your Jelly car around the jelly world and try to complete stages in as little time as possible. Need to cross a big gap? Tab your car to grow to several times it’s normal size, but be quick, this ability only lasts for a short time!

Jelly Car is a favorite for iPhone owners of all ages.

8. MazeFinger – This is one of those games that feels like it was meant to be played on an iPhone or iPod Touch. The goal is to simply guide your finger through the maze as quickly as possible, but it gets harder.

You’ll have to avoid skulls that will take one of your lives, and have to time the blockers just right to get through. You get rated at the end of each level and each set of levels. You have a set amount of time to complete a level set, so if you do poorly on the first level of the set, you’re going to pay for it in the subsequent levels!This is a fast paced game with great feedback.

9. rRootage Online – If you’re a fan of the “shmup” or “bullet hell” genre of top down arcade game, you’ll love rRootage. It might not have the fancy art of some of the established titles, but it’s free and has four game modes which all play somewhat differently.

Definitely read the help menu to understand the different modes if you’re a newbie, or jump right in to the wireframe gameplay and play through 160 stages of increasing difficulty.

Good luck, you’ll need it!

10. Lightsaber Unleashed – And I have to leave you with this one for number ten. Who hasn’t wanted a Lightsaber at some point in their life? Well, this is about as close as your going to get. If you’re not too embarrassed to wave your iPhone around like you’re crazy, or have a suitably private place to pretend that you’re a Jedi, then you’ll love this app. Better yet, find a friend and duel them, it’ll bring you’re childhood back in a rush of lightsabery glory. Be an ultra-nerd and customize your own lightsaber by choosing the color and hilt.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these ten free iphone gaming gems. If you’re looking to drop a bucks on some premium content, check out Kevin’s guide to 12 great paid iphone games.

10 Excellent Free Games for the iPhone and iPod Touch is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

The ZAGGmate, as it’s called, comes in two versions. The first is just the “ZAGGmate” ($69) which is an aluminum case that and stand for your iPad that goes over the front of the device. The other, which is the one that we’re testing, is the “ZAGGmate w/keyboard” ($99) which is the same aluminum screen cover, but it also has a rather handy Bluetooth keyboard built right into its impressively sleek form-factor!

Here’s a quick video from ZAGG to get give you an overview of the ZAGGmate with keyboard:

Design

The ZAGGmate w/keyboard is designed to mimic the iPad’s aesthetics and does so well. The brushed aluminum looks just like the back of the iPad and the color is matched quite closely.

The outside of the case has nothing more than a subtle “ZAGG” logo on the bottom of the back of the case, and a micro-USB port for charging the keyboard.

The ZAGGmate fits onto the iPad with a ultra-satisfying snugness, thanks to some precise machining and a neoprene-like material around the area that the ZAGGmate will contact your iPad. Not only does this ensure a tight fit, but it also will make sure that the iPad doesn’t get scratched as you put the case on and take it off.

My only worry about the lining that makes the iPad fight tightly is that it might wear out after some time. The duration of my test wasn’t long enough to verify whether or not this would happen, but between the padding losing it’s firmness (thus reducing the tightness of the fit) to the adhesive loosing it’s stick — there is a possibility of failure at some point down the road. At this time, the fit is so tight that I’d have to intentionally shake the iPad out of the case if I wanted it to fall out.

Any part of the ZAGGmate that comes into contact while it’s on the iPad are padded with a smooth rubberized material which let’s you be confident that the screen won’t get scratched when you put the case on.

The close fit also means that the ZAGGmate hardly adds bulk to your iPad (compared almost all other cases) and this is great for anyone who commonly slips their iPad into a bag to take it with them.

One thing I didn’t enjoy out of the box was that the included pamphlet actually recommended putting a protector on the ZAGGmate (naturally, they recommend their own Invisible Shield brand) because the aluminum can get scratched fairly easily. This seems a bit backward as the ZAGGmate is designed (in theory) to protect your iPad, so why would it need protection itself? Can you imagine buying a case for your iPhone and then having to put another case over top of it? That’d be a bit ridiculous, right?

One of the only parts of the ZAGGmate that feels lacking in quality and design is the stand that actually holds the iPad up. It’s made of plastic and snaps into position with small plastic nubs that feel like they might break off after a decent amount of use. The stand only locks into one position which means just one angle of tilt for your iPad. The iPad has good viewing angles, fortunately, but some still might be annoyed that they can’t adjust the angle if glare is an issue. I’m presuming that they selected the one angle to ensure that the iPad won’t tip the ZAGGmate over during use.

There isn’t much of a mechanism that actually holds the iPad into place. For the most part it just uses its own weight to sit in the trench, and there are little plastic pieces that slightly grab the aluminum lip between the iPad’s glass and bezel. It doesn’t actually “lock-in” to the keyboard in any sense, so don’t expect to be able to use it on your lap during a bumpy car ride; the ZAGGmate is definitely meant for table-top usage.

Getting the iPad out of the ZAGGmate works best if you hold it perpendicular to the surface that it’s sitting on, and use the dock connector as a grip to separate it from the case.

Keyboard

The ZAGGmate is heavy enough that it’ll keep the iPad upright in landscape or portrait mode, as long as you’re using it on a flat surface.

The keyboard on the ZAGGmate will really enhance your typing on the iPad. The benefits of using a bluetooth keyboard are two fold: First of all is the obvious fact that you’ll be able to type more quickly with the physical keyboard than the on-screen keyboard. Second, when using a bluetooth keyboard, the on-screen keyboard doesn’t pop-up so you have much more screen real-estate for what you’re actually looking at.

Connecting the keyboard is easy, just turn on bluetooth on the iPad, and flip the on-switch on the ZAGGmate and your iPad should pull it up in the bluetooth device list. Once you configure it by typing the PIN on the ZAGGmate and pressing Enter, the keyboard will connect to your iPad and be ready to type automatically from that point forward.

The on-off switch is nice for saving battery life, but it would have been neat if they included a button that would automatically be pressed by the iPad when it is put in the case, thus turning the keyboard off automatically so that you don’t have to think about it every time you put it away.

The keyboard itself is reminiscent of a 10” netbook keyboard. The keys have a classic laptop-style feel to them with great feedback and a good pitch (the distance that the keys press down). A proper shift-key on the left and right of the keyboard was greatly appreciated as many smaller keyboards that I’ve used in the past have either shrunk them down to single-key size or forgone one of them completely. The only keys I have an issue with on the keyboard are the tab and caps lock keys which didn’t seem to press down evenly. I couldn’t determine if this was a design issue or if there was something under the keys, but in the end it isn’t too much of a hindrance because they do work regardless of how they feel, and these keys aren’t used that frequently. While I’m on the tab note, I can confirm that the tab key will switch between text fields in both system dialogues and of webpages which helps with navigation of the cursor.

The keyboard has a full set of QWERTY keys, featuring everything you’d expect from a traditional keyboard, including a full row of half-sized function keys (F1-F12). Many of the function keys are have handy key bindings that perform actions on the iPad. For instance, the escape-key acts as the iPads home button. You can tap it to unlock the device (which even skips the “Slide to Unlock” slider), and you can even double-tap it to bring up the multi-tasking menu.

Furthermore, F1 will take you to the device’s spotlight search from anywhere that you might happen to be within the OS, F2 will start a slideshow, F3 toggles the on-screen keyboard (thought I’ve never needed to pull it up with the ZAGGmate attached), and F4 acts as the device’s lock button so that you can lock it without reaching around to the side of the device. There’s also play/pause and forward/back-track buttons mapped to F10 through F12 and volume up/down/mute buttons to boot! Very convenient.

I wouldn’t say that the keys are quite large enough to allow for full touch typing (properly using all 5 fingers on both hands). I generally ended up using just my index fingers (otherwise it’d be too cramped), but this was way faster than typing with the iPad’s on-screen keyboard. I used the same app to test typing speed that I used in my capacitive touchscreen glove showdown, it’s called TapTyping, and I used it to test the iPad’s on-screen keyboard in portrait and landscape modes, and test the ZAGGmate’s keyboard. Here are the results:

Conclusion

The ZAGGmate keyboard really gives you some serious typing ability and helps the iPad feel much more like a desktop computing experience. The fact that the keyboard doubles as a sort of case for the front of the device makes it really convenient to bring along. At $99, the price feels right for the ZAGGmate which is a well-built and very useful accessory (assuming that you do a lot of typing!).

ZAGGmate w/ Keyboard Review: Aluminum iPad Keyboard Case is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Forgoing the sometimes expensive docking route, I’ve found a simple solution to this problem that works well and is completely free! All you have to do is make a little knot-loop in one of your cables and run the other ones through it. I’ve found that when bundled together, cables tend to fall behind the desk much less frequently. Now when I get home from class my cables are waiting there to greet me rather than hanging out on the floor!

Quick Tip: Use A Knot In Your Cables To Prevent Them From Falling Behind Your Desk is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

With the continuing proliferation of computers into our daily lives it isn’t uncommon for children to have their own computers. Sometimes, children even have a computer in their room, or perhaps a portable one for use around the house. You may have a desire to make sure that your child isn’t using the computer at certain hours of the day, such as when they are supposed to be in bed, or when they are supposed to be doing their homework.

For this, don’t waste your money on any commercial parental control software, Windows 7 comes with useful parental controls built right in. In this article, we’ll show you how to restrict specific hours of use on your child’s computer. This solution also works for preventing children from using a family computer during certain hours by applying restrictions to specific accounts.

In order to set up such controls, you need to be on an administrator account (the default account should be administrator to begin with).

1. Create a Unique Account for Your Child

The first thing you need to do is create a user account for your child to use, upon which the restrictions will be placed.

1. To create a new account, click the Start button, and type User Accounts in the search box. Click the User Accounts result that pops up in the list.



2. Click Manage Another Account.



3. Click Create A New Account.



4. Give your child’s account a name, and make sure that it is set to Standard User, then click Create Account.

2. Configure the Account in the Parental Controls Window

Now we’re going to set the hours that your child can use the computer. Close all the windows from the previous step before proceeding.

1. Press the Start button and type Parental Controls. Select the Parental Controls option that pops up in the list.



2. Select your child’s account in the Users list.



3. Select the On, Enforce Current Settings radio button, then click on Time Limits under Windows Settings



4. Now you’ll be presented with a grid representing the hours that your child can and cannot use the computer. Use the mouse to place blue blocks to decide when your child cannot use the computer. In this example, I’ll block out the hours when I expect my child to be sleeping, and 2 hours in the evening when they should be doing homework. On the weekends, they don’t have the 2 hours blocked out for homework, and they can stay up an hour later. Click and drag with the mouse to block out large areas at once. Click OK once you are finished created the desired schedule.



5. Click OK once more on the following window and your all done.

Now your child won’t be able to use the computer during the specific hours that you specified.

3. Password Protect Your Account so Your Child Can’t Circumvent Your Restrictions

If your default account isn’t password protected, there’s nothing preventing your child from logging on to it and bypassing your restrictions. Follow these steps to password protect your account. First, ensure that you are on your account and not your child’s.

1. Press the Start button and type User Account, select User Accounts from the list of results.



2. Click Create a Password for Your Account.



3. Enter a password in the first field, then confirm the password in the second field. You may also want to add a password hint if you are prone to forgetting passwords. Click Create Password when you are finished.

Now you’ll have to enter your password when you login to your account, which forces your child to use their account, and doesn’t allow them to circumvent your time restrictions.

Windows 7 Parental Controls: How to Limit the Hours During Which Your Child Can Use the Computer is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Winter is fast approaching and for some the snow is already falling! Over the last year, millions of Americans have purchased new smartphones, many of which use capacitive touchscreens which are only sensitive to skin, and won’t work with a gloved finger. Naturally that means lots of people will end up frustrated when they come to realize that they have to choose between warm hands or being able to use their phone. Or do they? Fortunately, many companies are creating solutions for keeping your hands warm while still being able to use your capacitive device such as the iPhone. We’ve got five of those solutions and have put them to the test!

A brief intro before we get to the gloves. All of these gloves were sent to us for test purposes. I tested these gloves over the last month to get a good idea of how each one performs. In addition to doing typing tests using an iPhone, which result in word-per-minute and accuracy ratings, I’ve also anecdotally rated each glove between 1 and 5 in three categories that I identified as being important characteristics of capacitive touchscreen gloves. Those categories are as follows:

• Performance – How easy it is to operate the phone with the glove (including typing and using apps)
• Control – How easy it is to hold the phone and not drop it while using each pair of gloves and getting the phone in/out of a tight pocket
• Warmth

I based the ratings on a baseline of using the phone without any gloves which I rated 5 for performance and control, and 0 for warmth. For the typing tests, I used the ‘TapTyping’ app which had me type six randomly selected sentences that represent average typing difficulty. Random sentences ensured that I wasn’t getting used to typing the same sentence, thus favoring the gloves that were tested later. The app also doesn’t use predictive key padding or auto-correction which is present in most parts of iOS (and similar assistive-methods on other operating systems), so the results you see are without any sort of assistance and should generally improve somewhat during normal use.

I’ve also done the typing test using my gloveless hands as a baseline – you’ll see these results labeled as “Hands”.

Ok and now what you’ve been waiting for – the reviews! Here’s a quick graphical representation of how they stack up to each other, but you’ll find lots of additional detail below:

Freehands Power Stretch 5 ($24)

• WPM: 23

• Accuracy: 91%

The Freehands Power Stretch 5 gloves have a touchscreen friendly zone at the end of each finger. Some might call this redundant, as most gestures only require up to two fingers, but I found it useful as I do have an application that uses a three finger gesture and was happy to be able to utilize it while wearing these gloves. The responsiveness of the capacitive areas is great, and because they are somewhat “shaped” at the tips (as oppose to being floppy) it’s very easy to know exactly where the touchscreen sensitive parts will be making these gloves very good when it comes to performance.

These aren’t the warmest gloves, and they are expected to be used as a liner inside of another glove, but they still work well as a Fall glove in brisk (but not freezing) weather. These would work well on the ski slopes under a pair of thicker gloves, allowing you to answer calls or read texts on the ski lift by taking off the outer glove but not having to use a completely naked hand. The lines on the palm size of the glove could be forgiven if they actually provided some utility, but while it appears as though they might provide some additional grip, they hardly do.

Still, the thinness of the gloves makes them better on control than bulkier gloves. After a few weeks of use, I can see some slight fraying of the capacitive material – a process which will only be accelerated if these gloves are used as liners (due to the repeated abrasion during removal of the outer glove). Eventually, such fraying might reduce the performance of these gloves, but fortunately they don’t cost an arm or a leg.

Agloves ($18)

• WPM: 30

• Accuracy: 92%

The Agloves are a unique approach to capacitive touchscreen gloves. While most other gloves give you areas at the tips of your fingers that work with your capacitive touchscreen devices, the Agloves are sensitive to capacitive touchscreens throughout, thanks to silver coated nylon strands embedded into the gloves. This means that all 10 fingers as well as any other part of the glove will work with a capacitive touchscreen.

These gloves rated very well in control because they are quite thin, making it easy to hold your phone and get it out of your pocket. They also scored well in performance as they were the fastest and most accurate gloves I used during the typing test. Because the silver thread is woven throughout, these gloves don’t have unsightly silver patches at the end of the fingers, and are the most discrete in their style.

Performance comes at the cost of warmth though; these thin gloves aren’t too much warmer than no gloves at all, but they work well during the Fall . They might work well as a liner underneath a larger glove. Thinness also can result in low durability. If these gloves get pinched, they can tear somewhat easily.  They also won’t do well in wet weather.

Echo Boiled Wool Touch ($35)

• WPM: 1

• Accuracy: 76%

The Echo Boiled Wool gloves are probably the most stylish of the gloves I tested. They have a leather-like patch on the palm and a stylish lining that runs around the sides of the glove and fingers. These gloves are certainly the warmest of the ones that I’ve tested which is thanks in part to the polyester lining that is built right in. The Echo Boiled Wool gloves have a capacitive sensitive area on the thumb and index finger for touchscreen use. Warmth and style are the best points of these gloves, but it pays for it in other areas.

You’ll notice that the WPM is a measly 1. This result is a combination of a few things. First of which is the lining inside. The lining is only attached on the inside at the tips of the fingers and around the wrist. Everywhere else in between, the lining is separate from the outside of the glove. This allows the outside of the glove to rotate around the inside lining which means that the touch sensitive areas can rotate to random places around your finger instead of always being in a consistent place. This makes it hard to know with which part of the glove you need to tap your phone. Not helping this problem is the relatively small area of the touch sensitive points.

While the Freehands Power Touch gloves have touch sensitive areas that wrap all the way around the front and back of the finger, the Echo gloves only have a sensitive point on the fingerprint area of your finger. So instead of a poking motion, these gloves expected a motion which involves your fingerprint area flat down on your screen, which isn’t the most comfortable way to interact with your device. It’s also possible that the lining will pull out (think: flipping the glove inside out) because of the way it’s attached, but I didn’t seem to have an issue with this. It may be a problem if your hands get sweaty or moist.

These gloves will probably work fine for answering/ending the occasional call, but typing and games are mostly out of the question, unless you enjoy exercises in frustration. These are definitely my choice for warmth though.

Freehands Soft Shell ($28)

• WPM: 24

• Accuracy: 92%

In addition to their Power Stretch gloves, Freehands has another solution. This time, instead of using special material that allows one’s fingers to interact with a capacitive touchscreen, they simply have flaps that fold the material back at the thumb and index finger allowing you to use your good old natural pointers for use with your device. The flaps are held back with magnets. At first, these magnets would occasionally let the flaps go when I tried to bend my thumbs to type on the phone, but after a little breaking it they held just fine. These gloves are were warm for the most part, but are obviously going to be coldest at the flaps where they are least insulated, if you tried to use these on the slopes, you might end up with a numb thumb and index finger.

Trying to fold the flaps back after use (with both gloves on) can be a little bit frustrating. My fingers also didn’t stick out as far as I’d like meaning that when I needed to bend them, I was squeezing the glove material which can result in fatigue during use. Having the best fitting gloves for your hand size is the best way to combat this, and the ones I’ve been testing were a bit larger than perhaps were optimal for me. As with the Freehands Power Stretch gloves, the lines across the palm side of the glove don’t really provide any grip, and the bulkiness of the glove makes it hard to feel the phone in your hand, giving you less confidence about your ability to hold it than you would have with thinner gloves.

Thumb Dogs ($13)

• WMP: 16

• Accuracy: 88%

The Thumb Dogs are definitely the most flexible and inexpensive solution that I’ve tested. One pack comes with four Thumb Dogs which are little sleeves that are designed to go over the thumb and index finger of existing gloves. This means you can turn any pair of gloves that you already own into gloves that work with your touchscreen device. I’ve tested them with several gloves and they seem to work well, but your results will vary depending upon the type of glove that you use them with. Because of this, don’ let the WPM and accuracy ratings weigh on you too much as they only represent how the Thumb Dogs performed with the particular gloves that I used them with.

The Thumb Dogs work fine and are a flexible solution, but they aren’t for everyone. First of all, they can be annoying to use and keep track of. You have to put them on the thumb and index finger of each glove you are using them with, which means putting one glove on one hand, putting the Thumb Dogs on, then removing that glove, putting the other glove on, and putting the Thumb Dogs onto that glove. Then you can pick up the first glove and wear both; you’d have a hard time trying to put them on your gloves while both of your hands are gloved.

They also have the tendency to come out of their optimal position when you remove your gloves, so you’ll likely have to adjust them frequently. They also aren’t guaranteed to stay on and really love to grab hold of the hook end of velcro (found on plenty of jackets) so don’t be surprised if one of them disappears. There’s also the realization that Thumb Dogs are almost like accessories for your gloves, which are already accessories themselves. This just ads to the number of things that you need to keep track of and it get’s complicated if you are frequently in and our of buildings and removing your gloves then putting them back on. I also wish they were a bit more discrete instead of having big white Thumb Dog logos on all four of them, and an inside tag with the same logo that tends to pop out and annoying when you are putting them on your gloves. They don’t look too bad on a black glove (pictured above), but they’ll stand out on other colors.

With that said, this is the only solution that will let you use gloves, that you already know you love, for use with your capacitive touchscreen devices.

My Choice

When it comes down to it, my personal choice would be the Freehands Power Stretch gloves. They are reasonably priced and work great for typing and app control. While they aren’t quite as quick or accurate as the Agloves, I’m happy to sacrifice a little bit of performance and control for additional warmth.

Capacitive Touchscreen Glove Review Showdown: 5 Gloves Put to the Test on the iPhone is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Google has a habit of quickly iterating on their web services. Sometimes Google rolls these changes out to all users, but other times they let users who want certain features (that might not be ready for prime-time) opt-in to them.

These bonus-features are kept in a section that Google calls “Labs”. Google describes Gmail Labs as “a testing ground for experimental features that aren’t quite ready for primetime. They may change, break or disappear at any time.” So it’s sort of like the Nevada Test Site… except in your inbox… and with email instead of bombs.

We’ve cooked up a little guide to show you how to enable some of the most useful Gmail Lab features.

First we’ll show you how to find Gmail Labs, and what to do if something goes wrong (just in case):

Locating Google Labs

Finding Google Labs is easy. Just login to Gmail like you normally would and then click the green beaker at the top right of the page next:

Also before we begin, here’s what to do just in case enabling a Google Labs feature somehow renders you unable to access your inbox or certain parts of it. Simply access your email by using this special link which will disable all Labs Features: https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0

And now you’re prepared to turn on some of the Gmail Labs features and give them a try. Here’s our 5 favorite Google Labs, but they’re plenty more to check out!

Top 5 Google Labs Features:

1. Authentication icon for verified senders

This feature is very useful for anyone who uses Ebay or Paypal. If you use these two services, you’ve certainly seen your fair share of fake emails that purport to be from Ebay or Payapl, but are actually just trying to steal your info (these are called Phishing emails). Phishing emails are hard to identify because they can look nearly identical to the email that they are trying to impersonate. By enabling this feature, you’ll see a key icon next to any email in your inbox that is officially from Ebay or Paypal and thus be better protected against phishing scams.

2. Superstars

You might be familiar with Gmail’s “star” feature. It acts as a quick way to mark important emails and is useful for sorting them out or saving them for later. The Superstars feature expands this idea from a single star up to 12 icons that you can assign to any email. To toggle through them, simply click multiple times on the star icon. To decide which ones to use (I only use four, so I’ve disabled the rest to prevent myself from having to cycle through them all), click “Settings” at the top right of your inbox, and check out the “Superstars” section on the “General” tab. You can drag and drop which one’s you’d like to use and which you wouldn’t. You can even search for specific icons using the “has:” operator (ie: “has:star”). Learn the names of each icon (for searching) by rolling your mouse over it in the aforementioned Superstars section.

3. Undo Send

This one has surely saved me a number of time from making embarrassing mistakes (accidentally replying to all instead of just one person, etcetera). The Undo Send feature causes your email hang out with Gmail for about 5 seconds after you hit the send button. If you remembered something you forgot to include just as you hit the send button (as I always seem to do), you’ll find an “Undo” button at the top of your inbox for a few seconds which you can click to recall the email.

4. Multiple Inboxes

The Multiple Inbox feature allows you to split up your inbox into additional inboxes (up to 5). Each additional inbox can contain any emails you’d like. You can, for instance, have one for all of your starred emails, all emails from a particular important sender, or maybe all emails with attachments. To configure this, you simply need to enable the feature through Gmail Labs, then go to “Settings” (at the top right of your inbox), then find the “Multiple Inboxes” tab.  Messages go into each inbox based on search terms that you provide (such as, “has:attachment”). You’ll want to familiarize yourself with Gmail search operators in order to get the most out of this feature.

5. Multi Contact Suggestions

This feature is officially called “Don’t forget Bob”, so be sure to look for that when you are searching through the Gmail Labs list if you’d like to enable this feature. “Don’t forget Bob” automatically suggests additional recipients based on the groups you contact most often. This is particularly useful if you regularly use email to communicate with groups on various project, or frequently send a funny video to the same group of friends.

But Wait, There’s More!

These five that we’ve shared are only the tip of the Gmail Labs iceberg. At the time of writing, there are 56 Labs features that you might find useful. So go forth and check them out! You can also send feedback for each individual lab if you’d like to share some recommendation or issue by using the “Send Feedback” button next to the corresponding feature on the Labs page.

A Guide to Gmail Labs is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

I must say, the case is well named, the dark grey/black color definitely tones down the iPhone by covering the steel band that raps around it. Save for openings on the top, bottom, and left side (for volume button/mute switch access), the case makes the phone almost completely black. However, it doesn’t make the phone bland.

The back of the case adds some flourish with a carbon-fiber look, though it’s not actually carbon fiber as that would make the case quite expensive! The material is a rubberized plastic which has an almost suede feel to it when compared to regular plastic. I got a hard plastic case, with the same basic design as the Shadow, through Apple’s free case program and it’s already cracked at the corners. The Shadow has held up much better thus far and hasn’t cracked anywhere and doesn’t seem like it will any time soon.

The case clips on by wrapping around the sides and front of the phone. It clips on easily and stays very firm. It feels like it becomes part of the phone itself as there is no wiggle room what-so-ever. I couldn’t even detect any flexing on the back of the case where it is most prone to such a thing this means it fits really well. It doesn’t use the lip of the steel band like some cases, and instead ops to hang on by grabbing on slightly around onto the front of the phone. I absolutely hate cases that have large bezels (a large area on the front of the device used to secure the case) because the iPhone is specifically designed to have a completely flat front, but luckily the Shadow’s bezel is within my tolerance. It only clips over just a few millimeters onto the front, and doesn’t actually cover any of the iPhone’s screen itself. The only issue I’ve had with the slight bezel that it creates is when dragging icons from one home screen to the next (you have to drag them to the very edge of the screen to get them to go to the next), but it’s really doesn’t present too much of a hassle. You’ll notice it if you play any games that require precise control at the very edges of the screen, but otherwise it won’t be a problem for most.

I’m generally quite weary when it comes to carbon fiber or other fake accents because when they’re done wrong, they look like crap. Fortunately, the Shadow does things right. The back has a convincing look to it because it has a proper texture; it isn’t just a flat printed graphic. Carbon fiber is woven carbon bands that are made of smaller carbon strands (sort of like cable, only flat) the back of the case has a well laid plastic insert that is molded to look like carbon fiber with great precision. You can see, and even feel, the texture that gives carbon fiber its unique look (the strands) and they even look like they weave in and out like the real thing. Each under and over of the fake carbon bands reflects light in a distinct way which really completes the look.

As I mentioned, the back carbon fiber look-alike piece is an insert and it’s cut with a good deal of precision. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d probably wouldn’t even notice that it’s actually a separate piece. It appears to be glued in place, and I was worried at first that the adhesive might eventually lose it’s strength. Thankfully I’ve seen no evidence of this so far and have no reason to believe that it would give out after any extended period of time (at least not before you’d replace your phone). The back of the phone also naturally has an opening for the iPhone 4′s camera and flash. Instead of a hole straight through the fake carbon fiber insert, there is a bezel that has the same plastic as the non-carbon fiber parts of the case. The radius of the circle opening matches that of the camera’s lens perfectly which makes everything look nice and uniform.

As a bonus, the case comes with a plastic screen protector, but I wouldn’t recommend using it. Unless you have access to a completely dust-free NASA cleantent, you’ll probably end up with some bits of dust under the screen protector which, for someone like me, is incredibly annoying. Aside from inevitable dust, the screen protector is relatively easy to apply, but it’s tough to line up so that the opening for the speaker/front facing camera and home button feel properly aligned. There’s definitely a different feel to the iPhone’s screen when there’s plastic over top of it. It isn’t necessarily any worse, just… different.

The biggest issue with the screen protector is one that is inherent to all screen protectors and not just this one. All plastic screen protectors will scratch more easily than glass. This means you’ll end up with a screen cover on your phone will become completely scratched and look awful. People presume that they have saved” their precious” glass screen from all of those scratches when in reality probably 99% of the scratches would have never happened to a glass screen because glass is much harder than plastic. After less than a month on my phone, the screen protector looked horrendous. I was so happy to finally take it off and have my nice glass screen back!

You can snag the Xgear Shadow iPhone 4 case for somewhere around $20 depending on where you buy, (most cases seem to be in the $20 range). If you like the styling, I can’t see any reason to not recommend this case. In my usage, it’s been durable, fits perfectly, and has a well done carbon accent, and let’s you set you iPhone down on any old surface without worrying about the glass back.

Xgear iPhone 4 Shadow Case Review is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Facebook is a highly iterative website. The developers behind it are constantly making tweaks and changes to the layout, organization, etc. Sometimes these aren’t very visible to users, but other times they manifest themselves as new features for users to enjoy.

Groups

Just a few weeks ago, Facebook announced two major overhauls of integral parts of the Facebook experience. The first of which is a new Group format. According to a post on Facebook’s blog by Zuckerberg himself, the new Group scheme is designed to help you connect with smaller and more specific groups of people on Facebook:

“For example, you might want to share photos from a family vacation with just your family, send a video from a party to just the people who were there, invite coworkers to an office event, play a game with a few friends, or use a running website with your friends who like jogging.”

The new Groups system is quite similar to the old one, except now you have three privacy options:

• Open (anyone can see/join the group)
• Closed (everyone can see the group itself, but not the content inside, must be invited to the group to join)
• Secret (the group is invisible if you are not a member)

The idea is to be able to create groups for say, your fantasy football team, or a club, and then be able to post information to only those people within the group instead of bothering all of your friends with something posted as a status update. There is now also a group chat feature which puts everyone in the group who is online into a single chat.

Photos

Also receiving a major update are photos. I’m really excited about this one because it’ll make Facebook not only a great place to share photos, but also a great place to store them. Facebook has always been great for sharing photos, but never quite storing them because they would only be stored at a relatively low resolution, leaving it up to the user to locally store them and also to find a backup solution. With this update, photos have their longest edge increased from 720 pixels to a whopping 2048 pixels, which is potentially an increase of up to 8 times the current resolution (if considering a square photo).

This means that at very least, users who don’t use pay-for backup solutions will be able to retrieve many of their photos in a relatively high resolution if they happen to lose their local copies. Photos won’t be displayed at 2048 pixels wide by default, but each picture will have the option to Download in High Resolution” to get the full-sized copy.

In addition to a huge increase in photo resolution, Facebook is changing the way that you view photos. There will be a new viewer that pops-up for photo albums. Instead of loading a new page each time for each photo, you’ll be able to go from one photo to the next within a single pane, saving bandwidth and time. The coding for photos has been rewritten to enhance speed as well.

Both the new groups and photo changes should be rolling out to users over the next few weeks.

Facebook Launches Revamped Groups, Higher Resolution Photos is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Thanks to those that meticulously charted (and continue to chart) the stars above us, we have detailed maps of visible stars. Once upon a time, locating a particular star or consolation in the sky meant looking at a relatively complex star chart, using a compass and a sextant to determine what was what. These days, both Android and the iPhone have great applications that will give you access to such information in an extremely user-friendly way. With the right app, just hold your phone up to the sky and, thanks to the magic of GPS, accelerometers, and magnetometers, you’ll see a virtual view mimicking your night sky and allowing you to identify constellations, planets, and more.

How to find stars and explore the universe on the iPhone

My favorite astronomy app on the iPhone is definitely Pocket Universe. This app has an incredible wealth of information, including (but not limited to): solar system model, charts of rising/setting major objects, Messier objects, moon phases, an interactive star chart, and a dynamic guide to the night sky” which will tell you what’s happening in your night sky on a particular day. It even has the ability to help you find particular objects in the sky. Pocket Universe is a modest $2.99 and absolutely worth it considering the value and features that it offers. It really does feel like the knowledge of the visible (to the naked eye) universe is right there in your pocket.

Pocket Universe is a universal” app (no pun intended) which means it’s optimized for the iPad as well, and if you buy it for the iPhone, you’ll have it for the iPad, and vice-versa without having to pay twice. There is also a version of Pocket Universe which is exclusive to the iPad and has more features and an interface optimized for the iPad’s screen. If you’re using Pocket Universe on the iPod Touch or iPad WiFi, you’ll need to know and enter your coordinates manually if the device can’t determine it based on your WiFi access point.

Pocket Universe iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad ($2.99)

Pocket Universe HD iPad [exclusive version] ($4.99)

Another favorite of mine on the iPhone is the official NASA app. This one is totally free and will let you tune in to every major NASA space mission from AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) to XMM-Newton. It’ll also let you easily browse extensive and incredible astronomical imagery from the NASA Image of the Day and Astronomy Picture of the Day, not to mention watch videos, including NASA TV. Did I mention it’ll even tell you where major satellites are located over the Earth at any given time? Now that’s just cool. There’s even a special version of the NASA app that takes advantage of the iPad’s 1024×768 screen:

NASA App iPhone/iPod Touch (free)

NASA App HD iPad (free)

How to find stars on the Android

And if you’re using Android, don’t fret, Google’s got your back with the completely free Google Sky Map. Sky Map supports many of the same great features as Pocket Universe, including the ability to create a virtual sky above you for object and constellation identification, and you can even search for objects (planets, messier object, constellations, etc.) and it’ll show you how to find it in your night sky. See Google Sky Map in action:

Google Sky Map Android (free)

Thanks to Android’s extensive developer control (relative to Apple’s strict rules for developers) there’s a really great app on Android that you definitely won’t find any time soon on any Apple handheld. It’s called Astronomy Picture of the day (by Sam Oakley; there are several of the title alone in the Marketplace) and it automatically takes the latest picture posted to APOD and sets it as your background. You’ll wake up each day to a stunning astronomical image, and if you check your notification bar, you’ll be taken into the app and shown a full explanation of the image as provided by a professional astronomer.

Astronomy Picture of the Day (by Sam Oakley) Android (free)

The time is now, go forth and explore!

How to Use Your Android Phone or iPhone to Explore the Heavens (Astronomy) is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

TeamViewer is an awesome application that allows users to control any Mac or PC from an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Perhaps best of all, it’s free for personal use! Check out some of TeamViewers’ features:

Remote Access

Both spontaneous support and remote access to unattended computers are possible

Multi-Touch

Convenient control via multi-touch gestures: left click, right click, drag & drop, scroll wheel, zoom, change monitor

Keyboard

Complete keyboard incl. special keys such as Ctrl, Alt, Windows

Remote Reboot

Reboot the remote computer and reconnect

Screen Resolution

Automatically decrease the screen resolution of the remote computer

Partner List

Integrated partner list – see which computer or partner is online

Works Behind Firewalls

Trouble-free use behind firewalls and proxy servers

Security

Highest security standards: 256 Bit AES Session Encoding, 1024 Bit RSA Key Exchange

Here’s a quick demonstration of TeamViewer:

So how is it useful? I find it great for checking in on the status of various uploads or downloads. Instead of sitting around by my computer or checking in every 10 minutes to see if a long download has completed, I can go work on something else and use my iPhone to see exactly what’s happening on my computer.

Perhaps you have an important paper that you’re working on, but you’re stuck in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Fire up Team Viewer and keep working!

As the family tech support guy, it’s great when someone at home needs help on a computer and I can’t physically be there. If I’m out and about and they need a quick fix, I can fire up the app on my iPhone and control their computer to help them out.

The possibilities are quite endless. Here’s where you can get TeamViewer:

iPhone/iPod Touch

iPad

Use TeamViewer to Control Your Computer From Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.