February 1st was “change your password day.” Did you changed your passwords? When you’re managing your various accounts, passwords and other sensitive data, it becomes very difficult to keep them secure while accessible. You can easily find many efficient password managers but most of them comes at a premium.

Here, we’re going to take a quick look at Dashlane, a user-friendly and secure password manager for Windows and Mac. The app promises to cut the hassle of managing your accounts, passwords and other sensitive data while keeping the data safe from prying eyes. Let’s see if the app can keep its promise of providing better security while revolutionizing the way we login to websites today.

Exclusive Dashlane Invites for all My Technology Guide readers!

Dashlane is now in a private beta stage. But you don’t have to wait for an invite! Thanks to the great folks behind the software to set up an exclusive page for My Technology Guide readers with some exclusive invites.

Simply click on the link below to try Dashlane without waiting to get an invite!

Dashlane Beta Invites

Getting Started with Dashlane

After you click on the above link, enter your email address and download Dashlane. Launch the setup process, which is simple and quick. In Mac, Dashlane supports Safari in addition to Chrome and Firefox, both of which is also supported in the Windows platform. But if you’re using Internet Explorer, you’ve to wait a little more as IE is not yet supported by the app.

Now, when you’re going to set up your Dashlane account using the app, you’ll notice a window, which informs you that there is absolutely no way to recover your password if you forget it since it is not stored anywhere. It may sound very hard but it is perfect for an app like this.

If you’ve used an app like 1Password, you’ll see the same policy about password retrieval. LastPass though has a way to retrieve/reset your password if you forget your master password but the process they follow is pretty secure in our opinion and is a little different from how Dashlane works. So, we will not give any negative points to Dashlane for this.

How to use Dashlane?

Once you’re completed the setup, you’ll get into your dashboard where you can start entering your information. The user interface is elegant, easy to use and navigate. We loved the simplicity and gradient white color of the user interface.

All your information is categorized into three primary categories: Personal Data, Internet Accounts, Internet Shopping. These three categories are further expanded into following: Under Personal Data, you’ll find Contact, IDs, Payment; under Internet Accounts, Logins and Passwords, Security Dashboard; under Internet Shopping, Purchases.

Entering, Importing, Exporting and Saving Information

Dashlane developers have made the task of entering all your information super easy. Simply click on the little round “+” buttons, present under each category and a form pops out for you to fill in and save.

The Personal Data category can be filled up manually while the app intelligently saves your account details for different sites as you log into them using any supported browser. Here, you’ll notice a unique feature of Dashlane about which we haven’t talked yet. Whenever, the app saves any account details, it shows a dialog box to organize your accounts. In that very same dialog box you’ll notice a check box which says “Always log me into the website.” This feature is an exclusive feature of Dashlane.

So, the next time you open that website, the app automatically takes over and logs you in. If you have saved multiple accounts, suppose your Gmail, clicking on the username field will display a pull over menu with all the saved credentials. When you click on the username you want to login to, the app automatically logs you in without any further typing or clicking anywhere.

Dashlane also lets you automatically speed up your online purchases by filling up all the details and even saves the information about that purchase (total spent, retailer name, etc.) back in the app.

Another great feature of the app is its import facility. The app lets you import all your previously saved information from your favorite browser, LastPass, 1Password, Roboform, Password Wallet and Keypass. The app also lets you easily export all your saved data.

Login and Passwords

Under the Login and Passwords section you will see a grid of all the websites login credentials. Upon hovering on any of the tile, a play button appears at the corner. If you click on it, the app automatically loads the website and logs you in. A very convenient and innovative way to login to your favorite website.

Security Dashboard

The Security Dashboard provides a quick overview of the safety level, that is strength of each passwords that you’ve saved with Dashlane. A little bar displays password strength on a scale of 1-100% and a simple interpretation of the score such as “Super Safe,” “Safe” or “Very Unsafe.”

Dashlane Browser Extension

Dashlane during installation also installs the browser extensions. This extension helps capture the login credentials and helps you fill up data. We’ve already mentioned earlier how conveniently it helps filling up online forms through a pop-up menu for each field.

If you’re filling up a long form which needs your personal data like sign-up forms, you just need to choose your saved information with Dashlane and all the fields are filled out automatically.

Syncing

Dashlane saves all your information to your local hard-drive. But, if you’ve multiple computers, you’ve the option to sync all your information to the Dashlane servers. So, when you login to your Dashlane app in your other computer, it automatically syncs all your information.

Syncing is not enabled by default and is completely optional. Even what is getting synced is completely in your hands and for your safety, your financial information is never synced.

Conclusion

Dashlane, even though is in private beta, is already a very solid app with a lot of potential. With some of its unique features like automatic sign in, the app intelligent solves a lot of short comings present in currently available password managers. If you still don’t use any password manager, we highly recommend you to start using one and feel the difference. If you’re already using a password manager, you should definitely try Dashlane.

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, don’t hesitate to comment below and get a discussion flowing! Please share your favorite password manager and if you don’t use one, please tell us why you don’t use one. Thank you so much for reading!

We’ve seen Mozilla Prism and Google Chrome’s application shortcuts, built to display and make websites (web apps) behave as native applications. But both had one disadvantage, you don’t feel any difference over using just the browser. Basically, both just displayed the same look which you would see when opening the website in the browser. You never get the feeling of using an actual native application.

This is why SweetLabs came up with Pokki. Currently in beta, it aims to make you feel as if you’re actually using a desktop app when the next time you open your Gmail inbox or use the Facebook to connect with your friends or tweet to your friends. Pokki is available only for the Windows platform now, with Mac and Linux support coming down the line.

A Brief Pokki Introduction

Pokki is a framework built on Chromium that brings the web applications to your desktop through the help Pokki applications called “Pokkis”. Pokki apps are developed using standard web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, but with some key additions to bring you the best web application experience.

Pokki apps support nice notification tags on the icons of the apps in the menu bar. They’re also very easy to use and convenient to use too. So, you want to check your Gmail quickly? Simply click on the Gmail Pokkis, and it will pop up in a small window displaying your Gmail inbox. Click outside of the Pokki, and it disappears away. As simple as that.

Developing apps for Pokki is completely free. With their continuous contests for new apps, more and more new apps are added to Pokki. At the time of writing Pokki had already 83 apps and counting. So far, you’ll find Pokki applications for Twitter, Facebook, Grooveshark, GMail, and many more popular services. Even games like The Godfather and more are now available if you want to take a quick break. The apps are beautifully designed and easy to use.

Installing and Using Pokki

Sounds awesome? Let’s get started. First download Pokki from their official website and install it. The installation process is very quick and you should see a little acorn icon next to the Start Orb (or Start button) in the taskbar in under two minutes. Click on the little acorn to get access to the list of new, featured, and all available Pokkis.

Click on the Download button available below the Pokki app you want to install. You’ll find the icon of the downloaded Pokki apps in the taskbar next to the Pokki acorn. When you click one of them, it opens up in a larger view.

For example, the Gmail app brings up your Gmail inbox in a pop-up window that allows you to read, reply, and manage your email. The Facebook app shows your news stream and lets you update it or comment on other posts.

The Twitter app lets you access your tweets and update it. If you click anywhere out of a Pokki app window, the app disappears back to the taskbar.

Conclusion

All in all, Pokki by SweetLabs is rather very ambitious. Definitely worth to keep and use. As more and more developers starts building apps for Pokki, it will definitely suit millions of users.

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, don’t hesitate to comment below and get a discussion flowing! If you have used Pokki, tell us what you think about it and don’t forget to share your favorite Pokki app. Thank you for reading!

2011 is ending soon and we are ready to welcome 2012. Many of you are curios to find out what was best in different categories around the year. Some of you are still busy shopping. If you’re still shopping, here’s a good news for you. Amazon is making it easier to discover best of 2011 with its brand new “Best of Digital store.” Through this store, you can find recommendations from Amazon’s team of editors on the year’s best of movies & TV shows, music, video games, software, mobile apps, magazines and Kindle books and more.

Amazon has timed the launch to coincide with holiday shopping season. After all Amazon has always seen record number of sales of digital content for Amazon. According to a Press Release by Amazon, last year, from Christmas Eve through December 30, Amazon customers purchased over three times more digital content, including Kindle books, magazines, movies, TV shows, music, and digital games as compared to the weekly average for the year.

Here’s a preview of some of the recommendations Amazon is making for books, magazines, TV shows, movies, Android app, Android games, and software. More can be found at http://www.amazon.com/bestdigital.

Top ten recommended Kindle books:
1. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Issacson
2. “11/22/63″ by Stephen King
3. “The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach
4. “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” by Laini Taylor
5. “The Circus Ship” by Chris Van Dusen
6. “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
7. “A History of the World in 100 Objects” by Neil MacGregor
8. “The Litigators” by John Grisham
9. “Then Again” by Diane Keaton
10. “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Top ten recommended magazines:
1. Us Weekly
2. Cosmopolitan
3. Vanity Fair
4. National Geographic
5. O, the Oprah Magazine
6. WIRED
7. Glamour
8. Better Homes & Gardens
9. Reader’s Digest
10. Men’s Health

Top ten recommended movies:
1. The Social Network
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
3. Bridesmaids
4. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
5. X-Men: First Class
6. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
7. Crazy Stupid Love
8. You’ve Got Mail
9. Cars 2
10. The Fighter

Top ten recommended TV shows:
1. Walking Dead
2. Arrested Development
3. Lost
4. Breaking Bad
5. Sons of Anarchy
6. The X Files
7. Sesame Street
8. Glee
9. Parks and Rec
10. Friday Night Dinner

Top ten recommended albums:
1. Florence + the Machine, Ceremonials
2. Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
3. Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon: Experience Version
4. Adele, 21
5. Bon Iver, Bon Iver
6. Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto
7. Foster the People, Torches
8. Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues
9. Wilco, The Whole Love
10. The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow

Top ten recommended Android apps:
1. ESPN Score Center
2. LinkedIn
3. Quickoffice Pro
4. The Weather Channel for Android
5. EasyTether
6. Exchange by Touchdown
7. Pandora
8. Urbanspoon
9. MapQuest
10. Zillow Real Estate

Top ten recommended Android games:
1. Angry Birds
2. Words with Friends
3. Bejeweled 2
4. Atari’s Greatest Hits (Missile Command Free)
5. Asphalt 6: Adrenaline
6. Plants vs. Zombies
7. Top Girl
8. Fruit Ninja
9. Cut the Rope
10. Little Piano

Top ten recommended digital video games:
1. Battlefield 3
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
4. Dead Island
5. Saints Row: The Third
6. Dungeon Defenders
7. Magicka
8. Disney Universe
9. Sonic Generations
10. The Sims 3

Top ten recommendations for digital software:
1. Microsoft Office Home & Student 2010
2. Office Mac Home and Student 2011 (Family Pack)
3. TurboTax Deluxe Federal + E-file + State 2011
4. Norton 360 Version 5.0
5. Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade (Home Premium to Professional)
6. Quicken Deluxe 2012
7. Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 for Windows
8. Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set for Mac
9. PaintShop Pro X4
10. Anime Studio Debut 8

If you have received a brand new phone, tablet, PC or Mac for the holidays, Amazon apps may interest you. You can learn more about Amazon apps by visiting www.amazon.com/amazonmobile.

The Internet around us is exploding with new cool and amazing videos and articles every second. As we all are busy, we don’t have so much time to go through all the new links and videos shared in our social channels. Luckily, there are services available like Instapaper and Read It Later to save the links for later viewing. But what about audio and video? How to save them for later?

Seems, Spool is the service we all were waiting for. Spool is an intelligent service that saves pages to your Spool account and synchronizes them across the web and other devices including smartphones (Android, iPhone and iPad). After finding Spool in the Android Market, we started testing it. Below you’ll find our full rundown about the service.

Before, we start it’s important to note that Spool is still in beta and is invite only service at the time of writing. But, we found that we can easily sign-up for the service using the Android app instead of waiting for getting an invite through the web interface. You can also bypass the email sign-up process by using your Facebook account to sign-on.

Spool Introduction

Even though the service is still in beta phase, Spool is already ahead of the rest. The idea of saving the entire web which includes videos, article text, image galleries, PDFs, and more gives it the much-needed advantage.

Your Spool Dashboard

Which ever page you save for later goes to your Spool account. The web interface is very easy to navigate thanks to the way your saved stuff are visually presented to you. Along with the title, it pulls images from the saved articles and creates a thumbnail of saved videos instead of only offering a list.

By default when you’re logged in, you can view your main Spool page. You can further narrow down your saved items by Unread, Read, Favorite and Archived stuffs.

Just like the competition, Spool provides an optimized view of text and loads images and videos while blocking out all the extra stuff like advertisements. All the videos that you “spool”, are played in a custom player. The custom video player has all basic controls like adjusting the volume, entering full-screen mode and more. These saved pages and related media can also be viewed within the app, and favorite it for easy access or archive it when you’re finished viewing.

When we tested the video feature in our Samsung Galaxy S2, we found that the Android app downloads and saves the video for offline viewing. A cool feature, we must say, which we liked very much. The storage space used by the Spool mobile app can be adjusted in Settings. Another cool feature of the service is lets you share what you have saved in your Spool with your friends. Letting them enjoy the same stuff you are enjoying.

How To Spool, that is, Save For Later?

Saving stuff to your Spool is very easy. You have three options. You can either use browser extensions (available to Chrome and Firefox users), bookmarklet that will work in any browser or send an email to your personal Spool email address. When you are sending an email with attachment to your custom Spool email address, the attachment along with the mail content is saved in your Spool.

If you install the browser extension, you’ll notice that links (particularly in Google Reader, Google Plus, Google News, Facebook, Twitter, Quora and TechMeme at the time of writing) will have a small Spool icon next to them. We expect to see support for more websites as the service grows.

What Is Spoolbot? How Spool Works?

To know how Spool works and what exactly the Spoolbot is, you have to go just little back in time. In late-2010, Curtis Spencer (present CTO and co-founder) and Avichal Garg (present CEO and co-founder) developed an artificial intelligence and computer vision engine (now known as the Spoolbot) that could record a video from the Internet, encode it to work on any device, and move videos between devices without worrying about Flash or network connectivity. In 2011, this initial technology was generalized to include any type of content – videos, article text, image galleries, PDFs, and more – and Spool was born.

The Spoolbot reads the webpage the way a human would and extracts relevant parts, while discarding the rest (like the ads and other areas of the webpage). Most importantly, the Spoolbot converts the video into mobile-friendly, HTML5-based format, which is playable within any modern smartphone or tablet browser. The videos and other content are also cached to the device, for offline access.

Since, Adobe has decided to stop developing Flash for mobile. Apple has already banned Flash from iOS. So, not depending on Adobe Flash for delivering the videos is a very good decision by the founders of Spool.

In the future, Spool will focus on adding deep linking (automatically pulling down the content for the links within an article you saved), plus intelligent “spooling” of your favorite sites without an explicit request on your part.

So, Should You Go For Spool?

Right now, Spool is still in beta and is free to use. The mobile apps for Android and iOS is also free, but that may change in the future. If you are using services like Instapaper or Read It Later, we will definitely recommend you to use Spool.

WordPress has had over 65 million downloads since version 3.0 was released, out of which WordPress 3.2 has had over 14 million downloads. Today, the world sees the latest avatar of WordPress, as WordPress developers releases WordPress 3.3. Codenamed “Sonny” in honor of the jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt, WordPress 3.3 is available for download or update from within your WordPress dashboard.

WordPress 3.3 “Sonny” has a number of new features including many significant user interface improvements. Matt Mullenweg while announcing the release said, “experienced users will appreciate the new drag-and-drop uploader, hover menus for the navigation, the new toolbar, improved co-editing support, and the new Tumblr importer. Version 3.3 has significant improvements there with pointer tips for new features included in each update, a friendly welcome message for first-time users, and revamped help tabs throughout the interface. Finally we’ve improved the dashboard experience on the iPad and other tablets with better touch support.”

Watch this short video to get an overview about WordPress 3.3 “Sonny”.

The media uploader has also been streamlined with a drag-and-drop image uploader. A new menu feature allows users to hover over menus for navigation. There is a new toolbar, and improved co-editing notifications and support. And WordPress 3.3 now comes with a Tumblr importer and is optimized for the iPad.

WordPress developers will be happy with the release too. With the release of “Sonny” WordPress has released a new editor API, new jQuery version, better ways to hook into the help screens, improvements on the Codex and more for the developers.

Interested users can view the entire list of improvements on the Codex and in Trac.

Android Market has exceeded 10 billion app downloads, Google announced on their Google blog. To celebrate the milestone, Google has announced that for the next 10 days, starting from December 6, they’ll have a new set of apps available each day for only 10 cents each.

“Of course, none of these apps would have existed if it weren’t for the developers who created them. Every day, these developers continue to push the limits on what’s possible and delight us in the process. For that, we thank them,” said Eric Chu in his post at the Android Developer’s blog post.

The celebration started with the following ten apps:

Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids,Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft, Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound Infinity and SwiftKey X.

In their announcement Google said,

One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing thespeed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing. This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world, Android Market exceeded 10 billion app downloads—with a growth rate of one billion app downloads per month. We can’t wait to see where this accelerating growth takes us in 2012.

As you can see the exponential growth in the graph below, Android Market took around 22 months to reach 1 billion downloads. But it took only 9 months to reach the 10 billion mark from the one billion mark on July 2010.

By July this year, things started moving exponentially for the Android Market as it hit the six billion mark. In the last four months alone, four billion apps have been downloaded to mobile devices using Google’s operating system.

The premium apps offered by Google for 10 cents are really worth checking out!

Visit https://market.android.com/details?id=apps_timed_promotion for joining the 10-day-10-cents celebration. We also noticed that the apps already offered earlier day are still available for 10 cents each. So, if you have missed buying the apps featured earlier, you can search the Android Market and still buy them for 10 cents.

(Thanks to Android Developers Blog)

Google is soon going to enable the new navigation menu replacing the current black navigation bar.

“The Google bar, which runs across the top of the browser of nearly all Google services and offers easy access to Google’s products, has recently updated its look for a more consistent, streamlined user experience and increased visibility of the most popular services,” explains Google.

The new navigation looks much more elegant and compact. You will find the gray navigation bar above each of Google’s products. The bar basically has three main areas. When you hover your mouse pointer over the Google logo on the left or click on it, a drop-down menu will appear with links to Google services. The menu links to Google+, Web Search, Image Search, Google Maps, YouTube, Google News, Gmail and Google Docs, but you can mouse over “More” to see more services. The central area has a search box for the Google service you are using now. The right side features a share box and notifications to take part on Google+ from any Google page.

Watch the introductory video below:

How to enable and test Google’s New Navigation Bar?

If you use Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Internet Explorer 8+, than simply visit www.google.com in a new tab.

If you’re using Chrome, open JavaScript console by pressing Ctrl+Shift+J. In Firefox, open Web Console by pressing Ctrl+Shift+K. IE Developer Tools can be accessed by pressing F12.

Apple Safari users are need to turn on the ”Develop menu” first before they can get access to the “Web Inspector.” To enable “Develop Menu,” follow the steps below:

1. Open Safari Preferences and click on the ”Advanced” tab.
2. Check the box beside ”Show Develop menu in menu bar”. Close the Preferences window.
3. A new Safari menu item appears, labelled ”Develop”.
4. Now, right-click on the Google.com web page and click on Inspect to bring Web Inspector.

Now, all users of the above browsers, just select the “console” tab. Paste the following code and press Enter. After that you can close the “console”.

document.cookie="PREF=ID=03fd476a699d6487:U=88e8716486ff1e5d:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1322688084:LM=1322688085:S=McEsyvcXKMiVfGds; path=/; domain=.google.com";window.location.reload();

After reloading, you will be greeted by the new navigation bar:

If you’re not in the US and you’re using a different Google domain, replace .google.com with your domain in the code. For instance use .google.co.in in India.

Please note that this cookie hack only works for the English interface, so if you are using a localized version of Google, you many need to adjust your language preferences to English.

Auslogics File Recovery 3 is a simple to use professional application to recover deleted files or lost partitions. It also includes advanced privacy protection and backup tools too; it includes a secure file eraser and disk wiper.

We recently reviewed and hosted a giveaway of Auslogics File Recovery 3. Auslogics File Recovery 3 is a very good application that’s very simple to use. The step-by-step file recovery procedure is novice proof and allows anyone to easily recover files or partitions. The security features of the program are also very handy. Auslogics File Recovery 3 works with Windows 7/2008/Vista/2003/XP (32-bit & 64-bit).

We would like to first thank Auslogics for sponsoring the licenses. Now, it’s time for us to announce the names of the lucky winners! We used Random.org service to randomly choose the winner. Below are the names of the five lucky winners. Congratulations to all!

1. Thomas Schwerm
2. Abhishek Nair
3. San
4. Pankaj
5. briareoushex

Winners will receive an email from us shortly within 3 days. In the email, winners will find the license key of the program and instructions on how to install and activate the program. Thank you all for participating.

Do you know, we are running another very exclusive giveaway? For knowing more about it and to take part into the giveaway, click here!

YouTube introduced Redesigned Homepage and Channels view making it look closer to the Google+ look.

If you remember, few days back we provided a sneak peek into the new YouTube look. We also shared a simple cookie hack, using the hack, you can enable the new YouTube look. No more hacks required any more as the look has been officially finalized for YouTube.

When you login to your YouTube account, you’ll be greeted with recent activity from your subscriptions. You can also browse and add new Channels to your homepage. Connect with Google+ and Facebook to share your favorites with friends. Wait, what? Facebook integration? Well, it seems integrating both Google+ and Facebook together, Google wants to invite the large user base of Facebook to also try out their new Google+ social network by using YouTube as a bridge between the two.

Watch the introduction video below to get an overview of what’s new.

An instruction manual is also available at http://www.youtube.com/t/new.

Read more about the redesign on the YouTube blog.

Sygic: GPS Navigation for Android is a premium turn-by-turn navigation. We took the app for evaluation to see how it performs in our tests. You can read the full review of Sygic: GPS Navigation for Android here. It is a great navigation app for people who like or do a lot of traveling and can’t live without the GPS!

Sygic lists its premium app for free (actually a 7 day trial version) in the Android Market. The app is around 6 MB download and after installing it, users must download the maps. You don’t need to download all maps available through Sygic to your Android phone as it will take up precious space on their device. Using the Sygic Downloader, you have the choice to download each map. Sygic recommends using WiFi for downloading maps data as some maps are very big in size. After the 7-day trial expires, the app prompts the user to buy an activation key from the official webpage.

We would like to first thank Sygic for sponsoring the exclusive giveaway for our readers. Through this giveaway you can win an activation license of Sygic GPS Navigation worth 79.99 €. Using this license you will be able to activate Europe & America & Southeast Asia & Africa region.

The license will activate an awesome number of countries for you. The complete list of countries this license will unlock for you are as follows:

Africa:
Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe.

Europe:
Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Vatican.

Middle East:
Egypt.

USA:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Other:
Argentina, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Uruguay.

That’s a huge list, and includes almost all the major countries from the four continents! The complete list of compatible Android devices is here.

How to take part and get a chance to win a license of Sygic GPS Navigation For Android?

It’s very simple! To enter into this giveaway, fill up the giveaway form below:

Note: If the giveaway form is not appearing try refreshing the page again. If you have disabled JavaScript in your browser, please enable it or please disable any Ad-Blockers you are using. If the form is still not visible, please contact us by commenting below.

For earning extra points, you can further use the share buttons below. You can share daily for increasing your chances of winning. We will select the winners randomly. The giveaway is open to all visitors from anywhere in this world except where prohibited by law.

The giveaway ends on December 23, 2011, at noon GMT-8.0.

Best of luck!

In this digital age, when we keep all our important data dumped into electronic devices, it’s not very hard to lose the data either by human error or for any other reasons. Also, there is a threat of data being stolen when we thought that we got rid of it. Auslogics File Recovery 3 is a simple to use professional application to recover deleted files or lost partitions. It also includes advanced privacy protection and backup tools too; it includes a secure file eraser and disk wiper.

We completed our earlier Auslogics giveaway successfully, so we are here again with another Auslogics software giveaway! This time, the Auslogics File Recovery 3 is up for giveaway. We’ll be giving away 5 copies of Auslogics File Recovery 3 worth almost $250 in total this week. But, first, let’s see the features offered by this application.

File Recovery is a very straight forward and easy to use program. Inclusion of advanced privacy protection and backup tools further increases its value. Let’s take a quick walk-through of the program features before we talk about the giveaway.

As soon as you launch the program, you’ve the option to begin searching for your files in all available locations. The user-interface is very well laid out and even a novice user can get used to the functions in no time. In the left sidebar, all the detected hard disk drives are listed. In the right pane, you’ll be asked for the task you want to do with the program. In this case, the option to begin searching for deleted files.

There is an option to narrow down your search to certain file types only, if you know what exactly you’re looking for. Otherwise, you may search for all delete files on your drive. Further, you can narrow down to include only the files modified within or after a certain date. Next, the program asks you to enter any specific file name if you’re looking for just a particular file.

The program now provides you the option to do a deep scan, which is basically a thorough search and rescue method. After you click on the Search button, Auslogics File Recovery 3 begins its work. Depending on the size of your hard drive and the limits set by you, the search could take several minutes.

We tested the program on our virtual computer. Since, VM was newly deployed by us, the program returned results within seconds. On purpose, to test the effectiveness of the program, we detected mixed types of files that included some images, a word document, a PDF file and video file. Another feature of File Recover 3 is it generate a quick preview of certain media file types including PDF files. This feature is very handy in recovering the correct file.

Restoring files is also very easy using this program. You simply select the check box(es) next to the file(s), you want to recover and then click on the Recover Selected button. You will then receive a prompt to select the destination place, where you want to save the recovered files to.

Two important features of File Recovery 3 are recovering lost partitions and create a disk image. The lost partitions feature included in the program lets you recover accidentally deleted partitions from your system. File Recovery can find the information about deleted portions of the disk, so that you will be able to recover files from a lost partition. The program allows you to create a complete disk image of the logical drive along with all the information contained on the disk, including deleted files. This option allows you to recover files from the disk image later on while continuing working with the logical drive.

As mentioned earlier, File Recovery 3 comes bundled with two more features. Disk Wiper is one of them. The program lets you securely remove files. It permanently deletes files from the system so that no one can recover the files later. Since, some users may also want to securely wipe out their whole hard disk, File Recovery 3 lets you shutdown your PC automatically after the task completes.

File Shredder is another security feature provided by the program. File Shredder lets you securely delete specific files instead of wiping the hard disk. You simply drag and drop those files into the File Shredder, and click the Shred button. File Shredder starts securely deleting the files. So that, not only the program itself can recover the contents of the file. After the process completes, the program generates an HTML report just like its big brother Auslogics BoostSpeed 5 does.

Auslogics File Recovery 3 Giveaway

Auslogics File Recovery 3 is a very good application that’s very simple to use. The step-by-step file recovery procedure is novice proof and allows anyone to easily recover files or partitions. The security features of the program are also very handy. Auslogics File Recovery 3 works with Windows 7/2008/Vista/2003/XP (32-bit & 64-bit).

The program is available for $49.95 from Auslogics. You may download a trial from here to test the program.

We’re giving 5 copies worth almost $250 away this week so join the giveaway below!

Preference will be given to fans of our Facebook page/Google+ page and newsletter subscribers. So if you haven’t subscribed, do so now by clicking on this link.

In a nutshell, Like us to join our Facebook Page. If you are in Google+ than simply add us to your circle. If you’re already following us, you may skip this step.

Next step is to share about this giveaway using any of the social media buttons under this post.

And finally, to confirm that you are entering this giveaway, comment below.

Please use your real email address (if you are a subscriber, use your subscribed email address for getting preference) so that we can get in touch if you win.

That’s it! You’re done!

Well, not everyone are into social networks like Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

If you are among these, you’re still eligible to join the giveaway.

You have to be either a verified email subscriber of this website or if you have a blog or website, simply publish a post on your blog or website along with a link to this giveaway and a short description. Then come back here and in the comments, tell us where you’ve published it.

This giveaway begins now and ends on next Friday, December 2nd, 2011 at 22:00 (PST).

5 winners will be selected randomly and they will be contacted via email.

Have fun and don’t forget to share about this giveaway with your friends. After all sharing is caring.

Google is testing a new homepage design for YouTube (not the Cosmic Panda test). Even though there is no official announcement, you can get a taste of it using a simple cookie trick. If you don’t like it or want to get back to the old YouTube interface, simply delete the cookie.

YouTube visitors can enable the new test homepage layout by following the steps below:

• First, visit http://www.youtube.com using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
• Now, in Chrome, press Ctrl + Shift and J to open the Developer Tools. Alternatively, you can click on the spanner icon, go to Tools and select Developer Tools.
• Firefox users need to press Ctrl + Shift and K.
• Now, click on the “Console” Tab and type the following text and press Enter to confirm.
  document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ST1Ti53r4fU";
• Reload YouTube and Google will greet you to the new layout.

The new YouTube homepage layout is divided into three columns (as explained later) and looks like the screenshot below after a reload.

After logging in, you will notice neat Google+ and Facebook integration along with very well laid out subscribed channel information prominently displayed on the left side. Below it, under From YouTube, you can now easily access Trending or Popular videos. Further below, you will find suggested channels for you to subscribe to. The middle column is filled with updates from subscriptions, or if you click on From YouTube link, it displays the trending/popular videos. In the third (right) column, YouTube displays recommended videos based on your activities on YouTube and videos you have watched in the past.

Do you like the new test homepage layout of YouTube or like the old one? Share your thoughts with us.

Note: Google is testing this new layout and there is no official announcement if Google will finalize this as the new YouTube homepage in the future.

Thanks to Moritz Tolxdorff on Google+ for sharing the cookie trick.

Gmail team has finally released Gmail’s new look. Gmail new look was earlier available through two themes namely, Preview and Preview (dense).

Gmail’s new looks seems to be one more stepping stone towards bringing a consistent look throughout all Google products after the launch of Google+ (Google Plus). This new look features Streamlined conversations, Elastic density, New HD themes, Smarter navigation and Better search.

How to switch to Gmail’s New Look?

The new look is available to everyone and is now a opt-in feature. You will find a link to switch to the new look in your Gmail. If you don’t see the link to switch simply refresh Gmail once. Personally we liked the new look and features very much.

Watch the video to get an overview of the improvements.

New Gmail features in details

The Gmail Team has posted on Official Gmail Blog explaining the new features of the new Gmail look.

Streamlined conversations: Conversation view has been completely redesigned to help you read through your email threads. You’ll now see profiles pictures for your contacts, so it’s easier to keep track of who said what. We also stripped out as much as possible so you can focus on communicating with your friends and colleagues.
Elastic density: We know that you use Gmail from a variety of screen sizes and devices, so now the spacing between elements on the screen will automatically change based on the kind of display you’re using. If you prefer a denser view all the time, you can change your density manually in the Settings menu.
New HD themes: Themes have been completely rebuilt to enable us to bring you a new set of beautiful high-resolution themes with imagery provided by iStockphoto. We’ve updated most of the old favorites as well and your theme will be automatically carried over to the new look. Go to the Settings menu to take another look at themes and choose the one that fits you best.
Smarter navigation: The navigation panel on the left keeps your labels and chat contacts in view. It’s also more customizable: you can resize the labels and chat areas if you want to see more, or hide the chat area entirely via the chat icon in the lower left. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate around the user interface.
Better search: Click the drop-down in the search box to see a new advanced search panel, which makes it easier and faster to find exactly what you’re looking for. You can use the same panel to create a filter from any search in just a few clicks.

Below is a screenshot of the new Gmail HD Themes.

iStockphoto has partnered with Gmail to offer high-resolution images for Gmail HD Themes. If you want to buy iStockphoto credits (50 or more credits) at 20% discount use the discount code GMA1120.

TuneUp Utilities 2012 is one of the best Windows system tweaking and optimization program. Recently, we did a review of TuneUp Utilities 2012 along with a giveaway, and we thank TuneUp Corporation for sponsoring the licenses. We had 5 licenses up for the giveaway and received good number of responses.

So, here we are, announcing the names of the lucky 5 winners of the TuneUp Utilities 2012 giveaway selected randomly:

• Azmi
• pachomora
• Jon
• Jamil
• Robert

Congratulations to all the lucky winners! They will receive their free licenses shortly. And to those who participated in this giveaway but failed to win, do remember, you may be the winner next time so just wait for our next giveaway.

Note: Some entries were invalidated either because they didn’t subscribe or they didn’t confirm their subscriptions, which was one of our rules for participating in the giveaway. In case of any dispute about the giveaway, our decision will be considered final.

If you are one of the winner of this giveaway, you’ll be receiving an email containing your free license code of TuneUp Utilities 2012 in the next few days. If for some reason you can’t find the email in your inbox please check your spam/junk folder. If you still can’t find the email even after 7 days, please send us an email using the contact page. We’ll resolve your problem soon.

Thank you all for participating and stay tuned for the next giveaway!

Microsoft on Tuesday delivered the third and last service pack for Microsoft Office 2007 suite and SharePoint 2007.

The service pack includes all public updates, security updates, hot fixes and other updates that were released for Office 2007 through September 2011. According to Microsoft, SP3 also includes “general product fixes and improvements in stability, performance and security.”

Microsoft will retire Office 2007 suite from mainstream support on April 10, 2012. Microsoft will than supply security updates only during a five-year extended support phrase until April 11, 2017. Microsoft will halt all security updates to SP2 after a year from now.

SP3 includes the following improvements:

• Documents that need custom security trimming are not returned from alert search queries, even if the user who created the alert could see and query for these documents.
• Non-Unicode characters in certain error message strings now display correctly.
• Four new bibliography styles are now available in the “Word Citations & Bibliography” feature: Harvard Anglia, IEEE, APA Sixth Edition, and MLA Seventh Edition.
• Chinese New Year holiday is now included in the Outlook calendar for Singapore.
• Fixes an issue in which Excel 2007 sometimes crashes when you open an Excel workbook previously saved in a newer version of Excel. This occurs if the file uses a new feature that is not available in the 2007 Office system.
• Fixes issues with the Pre and Post Reform rules in the French Thesaurus.
• Fixes an issue in which encryption settings are not configurable when they are used with a file format compatibility pack converter and Office 2003 or an earlier version of Office.
• Fixes an issue in which a crash sometimes occurs when an Excel workbook is opened in Excel and then previewed by using the Windows Explorer preview pane feature.
• Fixes an issue in which Excel Slicers and Ribbon customizations are lost when an XLSX file is first saved as a ODS file, and then saved as an XLSX file in Excel 2007.

Download Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 3

The service pack can be downloaded via Windows Update or Microsoft Update automatically, or manually from Microsoft Download Center. Microsoft won’t start downloading and installing Office 2007 SP3 onto users’ PCs for 90 days. Although users will find the update as an optional install through Windows Update.

Links to all the download pages of Office 2007 SP3 and other products of the Office suite including the server version can be found in this Microsoft blog post.

You can download directly Microsoft Office 2007 SP3 and SharePoint 2007 SP3 from the links below (English US):

Download Microsoft Office 2007 SP3 Package (351.0 MB): office2007sp3-kb2526086-fullfile-en-us.exe

Download Office 2007 SP3 Language Packs (67 MB): officelp2007sp3-kb2526086-fullfile-en-us.exe

Official Microsoft Download Center Page for the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 3 (SP3).

This update also applies to Microsoft Office Project, Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, Microsoft Office Visio, and Visual Web Developer.

To Install Microsoft Office 2007 Suite Service Pack 3 (SP3), follow these steps:

• Download the .exe file by clicking on the link above and then save the file to your hard disk drive.
• After downloading the file, double-click the .exe file that you saved to your hard disk drive, and follow the instructions on the screen.

Uninstall or Remove Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 3

If you notice any issues after installing SP3, you can use the Microsoft Service Pack Uninstall Tool for the 2007 Microsoft Office suite to safely uninstall the service pack.

TuneUp Utilities 2012 is the latest version of one of the most popular Windows system optimization and tweaking program. Every year it is getting perfected with new unique features added to the program. TuneUp Utilities 2012 features all the functions that were present in the earlier version, viz, TuneUp Utilities 2011 (which we have reviewed earlier). Along with all those features, two notable features added to the latest version are TuneUp Economy Mode and TuneUp Program Deactivator.

TuneUp Economy Mode will extend the battery life of notebook, netbook and tablet computers by shutting off processes and hardware components that aren’t required or in use. TuneUp Economy Mode is the new introduced feature of 2012 while TuneUp Program Deactivator, introduced in 2011 version, has gone through major overhauling in 2012 edition. Both TuneUp Economy Mode and TuneUp Program Deactivator, when used in combination can boost the energy efficiency of Windows 7 systems by up to 30 percent, when compared with the Windows 7 built-in energy savings mode.

With today’s increasing computing power, multi-core processors and gigabytes of RAM, many users will argue if they need a system optimization program? But, many users will agree with us that even with so much of computation power in hand, Windows tends to become sluggish after usage. Microsoft promises to change this scenario with its upcoming Windows 8 operating system but until than we are left with trusted system optimization utilities like TuneUp Utilities.

Since we have already reviewed TuneUp Utilities 2011 and most of the tools, although improved, have remained same in TuneUp Utilities 2012, in this review we will concentrate only on the most notable two features (discussed above). You can go through the thorough review of TuneUp Utilities 2011 here to know in-depth about what it offers.

At the end of this review (after break), you will find a giveaway contest, through which you can win a free license of TuneUp Utilities 2012 worth $49.95. 5 licenses are up for the giveaway, so the total licenses worth approx $250 (exactly $249.75). More on that later.

A quick walk-through…

TuneUp Utilities 2012 User Interface

The installation was very straight forward, after which, TuneUp Utilities immediately launched its 1-Click Maintenance tool. The tool quickly checks for Windows Registry errors, broken shortcuts, temporary files (but Recycle Bin), Windows startup and shutdown problems, disk fragmentation and so on. A report of everything found, is provided after the analysis and you can then fix the issues with a single click.

As we have seen earlier with 2011, the tools are divided into five tabs:

• Status & recommendations: shows you an overview of the current condition of your system and gives you recommendations on how you can improve the system’s health.
• Optimize system: disable or uninstall unwanted programs and clean up your system and your data.
• Gain disk space: you can delete unnecessary data systematically from your system.
• Fix problems: you will find simple solutions for any problems that might occur.
• Customize Windows: you can configure how your Windows should look and function, thereby personalizing your computer.

For advance users or for quickly finding a tool, you can click on “Overview of all functions” option. This option gives you a list of all functions that TuneUp Utilities offers. If you click on the wrench icon next to a tool, it opens the settings for that tool.

TuneUp Program Deactivator

Many Windows programs like Microsoft Office adds services, startup programs and other tasks which slows down the system and hampers performance, even though we don’t need those services or programs to start with Windows. If uninstalling the program is not an option than the revamped version of Program Deactivator might be able to help you.

Simply launch Program Deactivator and a list of installed programs is displayed along with its performance impact on your PC. We have already seen earlier in TuneUp Utilities 2011, that it really works and improves performance of the system.

What’s new in TuneUp Utilities 2012 edition of Program Deactivator is the TuneUp Programs-on-Demand Technology, in layman terms the “Automatic” function. Simply keep the function on, and if you launch a “deactivated” program then TuneUp Utilities 2012 will automatically disable this again once you’ve closed it down. Thus it keeps your system in top performance always.

Even though your mileage may vary when using this tool. But if your system is packed up with programs (like ours), TuneUp Program Deactivator will surely help you gain performance.

TuneUp Economy Mode

Windows 7 is optimized to conserve power but it is still not fully optimized. As the number of background process, service or scheduled task increases, the impact on the power can also be felt. This prevents devices from entering low-power (or idle) modes. TuneUp Economy Mode prevents PC hardware components from delivering too much power when it’s not really needed. Once TuneUp Economy Mode is active, all non-essential background processes and services are disabled to reduce power usage. The settings are very easy to configure. In our tests, we have seen an increase in battery life.

Conclusion

In our tests on a laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) on Core i5, 4GB RAM, 640GB HDD, boot time fell by around 10 percent, RAM usage fell from 40 percent to 35 percent. Overall, system performance was improved and we actually found our applications launching faster.

You can test TuneUp Utilities 2012 for yourself and see the system performance improvements yourself. The software is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32-bit and 64-bit editions) and can be downloaded from TuneUp Utilities official website for free.

TuneUp Utilities 2012 Giveaway

Update: Giveaway is over. Winners are announced here.

We will like to first thank TuneUp Corporation for sponsoring the giveaway. We have 5 licenses of TuneUp Utilities 2012 to give away to our readers for free.

How to take part in the TuneUp Utilities 2012 giveaway?

Subscribe to My Technology Guide Email Updates. You can subscribe us using following link: Subscribe to My Technology Guide

Note: For new subscribers, don’t forget to click on the confirmation email sent to you by FeedBurner to start our email subscription. If we find that your subscription is incomplete than your entry for the giveaway will not be considered.

Now, simply share about this giveaway on any social networking site of your choice and post its status URL here in the comments (for verification). You may also share this offer on your blog or post about the giveaway in a forum and post the URL here. The more you share, the more are your chances of winning. Make sure to use the same email address registered for My Technology Guide email newsletter, otherwise you won’t be eligible for the giveaway.

For increasing your chances further, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or FriendFeed.

The 5 lucky winners will be announced by us after 7 days.

Disclaimer: We received a license key for reviewing the application but we opted to test it in free trial mode. Since most users will test the software in trial mode before buying. The trial program is fully functional and can be tested for 15 days.

Microsoft is planning to issue eight security bulletins which will fix 23 vulnerabilities in October’s Patch Tuesday. The software giant revealed the information through an advanced notification on Thursday.

The eight security bulletins will fix various problems in Windows operating system, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Silverlight, .NET Framework, and others. Two of the security bulletins are rated critical and will fix vulnerabilities in the .NET framework, Silverlight, Internet Explorer and Windows OS. The critical Internet Explorer flaw affects all supported versions of IE on all supported versions of Windows. The other six bulletins are rated as Important. Six of the bulletins will address Remote Code Execution problem, one fixes Elevation of privilege in Microsoft Windows and the other one fixes a Denial of Service problem in Microsoft Host Integration Server. Almost all the patches requires a system restart.

The following table summarizes the security bulletins for this month in order of severity.

Bulletin ID	Maximum Severity Rating and Vulnerability Impact	Restart Requirement	Affected Software
Bulletin 1	Critical Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Silverlight
Bulletin 2	Critical Remote Code Execution	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer
Bulletin 3	Important Remote Code Execution	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows
Bulletin 4	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Windows
Bulletin 5	Important Remote Code Execution	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows
Bulletin 6	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway
Bulletin 7	Important Elevation of Privilege	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows
Bulletin 8	Important Denial of Service	May require restart	Microsoft Host Integration Server

Microsoft’s October Patch Tuesday will start on October 11 at 10:00 AM PST. As usual, Microsoft will host a webcast to address customer questions on the security bulletins on October 12, 2011, at 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada).

Windows users will be able to update their computer systems through Windows Update when the patches are released. Server administrators should plan the installation of patches since all of them requires a system restart.

Microsoft has enabled HTML5 videos for its Bing search engine.

Both the search engine giants, Google and Bing always tries their best to entice the users by bringing in new features to their homepages. Earlier, what was a simple search form on both these search giants homepages, has now became very lively and interactive. Google lets their users set custom backgrounds while Bing displays a new wallpaper in its background everyday. Competing with Google to bring out the best user experience, Bing has added another new feather to its cap with the new HTML5 videos which play in the background of their homepage.

Microsoft revealed the change in a blog post on Friday. According to Bing homepage team member, Stephanie Horstmanshof, as of yet, you will not see a new video everyday, but the videos will change on special occasions or moods. Although the new HTML5 video enabled Bing homepage is U.S. only, Microsoft plans to roll this out to international markets in the next few months.

We won’t be programming a video every day, just when the mood strikes us.
While this first video is US-only, we’ll begin rolling the video homepage out to international markets in the next few months – so stay tuned.

If you are using a modern latest browser like Firefox, Chrome, IE9, Opera etc, you will be able to play the videos without any problem. If you are not using a HTML5 capable browser you will instead see the static wallpaper image. If you are not in the US and want to check out the new HTML5 video enabled Bing homepage, simply change your region to United States – English by visiting this page.

The first HTML5 animated homepage features a video of the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Microsoft has created a video that gives us a look behind the scenes of the Bing homepage.

We really liked it and found it very lively. And we didn’t notice any lag in the page load too. Visit www.bing.com now to experience it yourself. Do you like the new HTML5 video enabled Bing homepage or like the static wallpaper based homepage much more?

Google after 100 days of field testing Google Plus, their social network service, has opened gates for the service to all.

Up until now, Google+ was an invite only social networking service. It was only possible to join the service after receiving an invite from someone who got lucky to get in first, or by accessing the site when Google temporarily removes the invite-limitation.

Today over at the official Google Blog, Google announced that Google+ is now available for everyone. Anyone now can sign up for Google+ without any invitation. Thus Google+ officially graduated from “field-trial” to “beta” phase.

If you have waiting to get into Google Plus, but wasn’t lucky, now you can sign up through the official website at google.com/+ or http://plus.google.com/. After visiting that page, simply click on Sign In button and use your Google Account to sign in. Fill up the form and click on the Join button to start using Google+ social networking service.

The blog post also announced many new and improved features. This includes Hangouts on your phone. Hangouts uses live video to bring people together, face-to-face-to-face. If you use your Android phone to connect to Google Plus, you can now join Hangouts just like your buddies using the desktop can. Hangouts now supports Android 2.3+ devices with front-facing cameras (and iOS support is coming soon). The new mobile app is rolling out to Android Market today, so you can start hanging out at any time, from just about anywhere.

Hangouts on Air is another new feature which allows Google+ users to record a session and broadcast it. As usual up to 9 people can join you while can be watched by anyone. Other improvements and extras Hangouts got include Screensharing, Sketchpad, Google Docs support and Named Hangouts.

Last week Google launched the Google+ API for developers. Today, Google released Hangouts API specially made for Hangouts. If you are a developer, you can find more information about the available APIs over at the official Google+ Platform blog.

Search in Google+ got more improved. Using Search in Google Plus, you can now find relevant people and posts, as well as popular content from around the web.

Other notable improvements can be seen on the mobile front of Google Plus. The notable ones are improved SMS support, improved +mentions support, +1′ing comments from the mobile app (iOS app only, Android will be supported soon). The Google+ mobile users will now be able to edit their profile photo and customize notifications. Google+ app for Android now supports App to SD storage. And last but not the least, Google renamed Huddle to Messenger.

You can read the full announcement over at the official Google Blog and over at the official Google Mobile Blog.  Do add me to your circle while you go through all the improvements!

iSkysoft iTube Studio for Mac lets you download and convert videos (HD videos supported) from YouTube, Facebook, TNT, BREAK, Google Video, and many other video-sharing sites from Safari web browser. After download, you can convert videos to use with iPhone, iPod, iPad, PSP and mobile phones; or to any video and audio format of your choice.

iSkysoft iTube Studio supports the following websites: YouTube, Facebook, TNT, Bing video, Yahoo video, Google video, BREAK, TwitVid, TeacherTube, RuTube, Photobucket, VEVO, Funnyordie, Expotv, Engagemedia, Archive, CNN, Metacafe (Hulu video excluded) etc.

The software lets you convert the downloaded videos into formats compatible with Apple Devices, Apple Software, Game Console, Portable Video Players, HD Movie, Mobile Phone, Video Formats, Audio Formats.

How To Download Videos from YouTube or Other Video-Sharing Sites?

After downloading the application, launch iTube Studio for Mac installer and a wizard will guide you through the setup process. iTube Studio for Mac will automatically launch when installation finished.

Launch Safari web browser and visit YouTube.com. The Download button will show up at the top left corner of the video when detected on the webpage. iTube Studio offers three options for you to download videos:

• Click the button and let the YouTube download wizard to do the thing for you.
• Drag the URL to the iTube Studio for Mac dock icon to start downloading.
• Go to Download menu and choose Enter a URL, then click OK.

How To Get iTube Studio for Mac License?

iSkysoft Studio the developers of iTube Studio for Mac has launched a giveaway promotion. Through this giveaway, you will be able to get a free license of iTube Studio, the YouTube Downloader Mac.

To receive the license, simply visit the promotion page at: http://www.iskysoft.com/itube-studio-mac/giveaway.html

Fill up the request form and click on Get Key Code button.

You will receive the license code in your email address. Use the license code to register the product.