Percussive: Unleash Your Inner Talent

I'm not a musical type of person myself, even with Garageband, which is known as one of the greatest innovation in the app development history. I just can't enjoy the real excitement of having that $4.99 app in my iPad, besides faking my talent through the "smart" instruments included. Well, today I found something, an app that really mean a lot to me, and it's called "Percussive". I know there many more great applications out there, but this app is amazing, at least for a non-musically gifted person like me. With a moderate price tag of $1.99, this app is what you need as a kick start to awake your inner talent! The paid full version gives you 5 types of percussion instruments, including Glockenspiel, Marimba, Vibraphone, Xylophone, and Kalimba. THE BEST thing that these instruments offered are the notes (in the form of alphabets) clearly crafted on every piece of key on each instrument. This helps ordinary people like me to arrange the notes into a proper piece of music.

Verdict: The only drawback I found from this app is its inability to record the music that I played. In order to produce a sample of the music I played, I've to use a mini microphone attached to my laptop instead. For your information, there is also a free but limited version with only 1 instrument available, for those who want to tryout before purchase, you can do so.

Here is something I've done for fun using this app together with a cheap microphone, hope you guys enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoy playing it. :)

Volt HD for iPad

One of the reasons iPad is impractical for college undergraduates is its incapability to open certain webpages which requires Internet Explorer. But don't worry, our "app"mosphere just get better everyday! This web browsing app is called Volt HD. Designed specially for iPad, this app can pretend to be many popular web browsers, through its powerful feature known as "Browser Poser". It is able to pose as browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Opera Mobi, and Internet Explorer. We have yet to try everyone of them, but the Internet Explorer mode did work well in our test while we try to open the MOE (Ministry of Education) website.

This app is available for free in the AppStore for iPad.

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's only 1 day before our Chinese New Year's eve, "My Tech, My Life" would like to wish all of you, a happy, healthy Chinese New Year! Here's a simple gift for all our readers, done using Evernote Skitch, hope you like it :)

Tiles: Apps Organizer for Windows

Remember the time when you get frustrated while trying to find the important documents from your cluttered desktop and folders. "Tiles", is a new innovation by Stardock Corp. It is a sidebar which help you organize your running applications and shortcuts. All you need to do is to click on an active application, and drag n drop the application to the sidebar. Besides that, you can also find your files and folders easily by drag n drop your important files/folders to the sidebar to create a shortcut. You can customize and personalize your sidebar by right clicking the sidebar, and click on "Configure Stardock Tiles" to view additional options.

A Perfect All-In-One Video Solution

Everyone likes watching videos, and I bet nobody can live without a decent video player software on your PC. But which one is the best? Based on my "itchy hands" experience (I basically tried every video software available), the only one that satisfy me for all these years is surprisingly a Chinese-based software. Named "SPlayer", this software is unbelievably powerful. It basically supports every video format that you can name. Seriously everything. Furthermore, the video quality is beautiful. One of the popular video software "VLC" is definitely no match to "SPlayer" in terms of video playback quality. Another distinctive feature which make it a standout among other competitors is its ability to auto-match subtitles. What does that mean? It actually means that the software will automatically help you to find subtitles from the web and display it on your movie. You don't have to worry about subtitles issue anymore.

So you must wondering, we have this software that is packed with so many amazing features, it must be heavy then. I can assure you that it is absolutely light and will not affect your PC memory at all. Hence, you can continue doing other stuff while enjoying your favourite movies and dramas. This software is available for free in both English and Chinese version. Please click on the following links for further information.

English version: SPlayer (EN)

Chinese version: SPlayer (CN)

Defrag It Your Way

There are plenty of free, amazing defragmenter available online, with the well known ones like defraggler, Smart Defrag, Auslogic Disk Defrag, etc. Also, once featured in "My Tech, My Life", was the "not so" famous, yet powerful defragmenter called "MyDefrag v4.3.1". No matter how powerful and amazing all those defragmenters are, they shared a common problem, they only allow you to defrag the whole disk, and you've totally no idea what is going on within the process. Alright, now let's talk about "WinContig", the new generation defragmenter. There are basically a lot of great features in this software, but we'll just focus on one today. What makes WinContig stand out from the rest?

"WinContig" lets you choose what you want! Yeap, exactly what I mean. "WinContig" actually allows you to choose specifically the files that you would like to optimize, and exclude other unimportant ones. Hence, it helps huge amount of your precious time. You can avoid waiting for hours, just to wait for a full cycle of defragmentation to complete. Well of course, if you still want a full defragment, you can do it as well, with this awesome software.

Want to download WinContig directly? Just click on WinContig, and save the file at your desired location.

Note: No installation required.

Too "Lag" to be True

CloudOn...hmmm, I was struggling while rating this app. Yes, it's supposed to gain our "amazing" status, since the developer created something extraordinary, a productive app that let you do unbelievable stuff. I mean, seriously, how many of us can ever imagine getting 3 of Microsoft Office's most valuable assets (Words, Excel, Power Point) for free on iPad? Seriously? Yeap, the testing proves that developer keeps his promises. The app allows you to create, edit, and save Office documents, with absolutely no charges. The only thing you need is a valid Dropbox account.

But why am I hesitating? Why doesn't it get "My Tech, My Life's" recommendation? I noticed the biggest drawback of this app once I launched the app. What? I can't create Word Document without internet connection?? Okay, I told myself to cool down, this app is free, and it's a cloud based system. Alright, I forgive them. But wait! What!? The thing I HATE the most...it is extremely LAGGY! It takes up to 3 seconds for words to appear after I type, and the buttons are so irresponsive. Every tap on buttons take seconds to load, and page scrolling & zooming are so slow!

Verdict: It might be a good idea for CloudOn developer to come out with something useful like this, but it's really not practical to require network connection to create and edit Office Doc. What if there's suddenly a network interruption? Can you imagine all your work evaporate into thin air after you spend hours working on it?

Video FX Live! - Good Stuff For Free!

There aren't many great free video recording apps available for iPad users, hence we are very excited to know that a high quality app like Video FX Live is made free for today. The app is very simple to use. All you need to do is choose the effect you like and start recording. The interesting part of this app is, you can actually change as much effects as you wish when the the app is in the middle of recording. There are about 60 amazing effects for you to choose from, and you can even customize your own custom effects by mixing n matching the preset effects. After recording the video, you can either send it to your photo roll or share it on Youtube, Facebook, and email. This app is designed for both iPad and iPhone.

 

We Don't Want Delay in Add-on Installation!

 A lot of Firefox users have the same issue, the add-on installation delay, that will countdown for few seconds before you can start your add-on installation. Yes, it is annoying! We know that, and we here to offer you a solution. First, type "about:config" at your URL bar. In case you have no idea what a URL bar is, it is the long bar where you type in your full web address. Alright, assume you've already done the first step, now, key in "security.dialog_enable_delay". When you see the exact entry, double click it and change the value to 0. Don't worry about voiding your warranty or whatsoever, this is completely safe, we can ensure you.

Double click on the highlighted entry

Change the Value to "0"

Create a Wifi Hotspot with Your PC

Besides being a blogger, I work as a lecturer as well. Working in an office with only LAN cable port is torturing, especially when I want to use my iPad. What should I do? Of course I don't want to do a dozen of setup just to create a virtual hotspot. I also don't intend to spend money on extra wireless router. So, again, what should I do??? Don't worry about that, we certainly have the solution for you, and it's perfectly simple.

Connectify is what you need. Just click on the link to download the application for Windows PC. After installing the application, they will prompt you update to the PRO version. You can omit that one as the "Lite" version is already sufficient enough for home users. When you are done, you will need to reboot your PC. By rebooting your PC, the Connectify application will launch at your startup. There's no complicated setup, you just need to set your hotspot name and password. Then select the wifi adapter that you are using to amplify the wifi signal. You also need to select the network card of your PC (which you use to receive broadband signal from the LAN cable). That's it! Now plug in your LAN cable and wait for the hotspot name which you set to appear on your iPad Wifi detection list. Tap on your hotspot and type in the password that you set just now and you are now ready to surf!

Asphalt Adrenalin 6 for iPad: Latest Update

Previously reviewed in My Tech, My Life, Asphalt 6 was commented as a great free racing game app for iPad, yet crashes too much. Well, I am pleased to announce that Asphalt 6 is now official recommended by our blog, mainly because the crashes issue has been resolved. Those who favour car racing will surely fall in love with Asphalt 6, that we can assure you, as we have spent nights with the app, and it's fantastic! Go download your copy now!!!

p.s. Our team has reached the 7th level--Pro Nitro Series!!! Come beat us!

Note: Unfortunately, Asphalt Adrenalin 6 has now gone back to its original $0.99 USD price, but we think it worth the cash.