iLinkPod

I love iPods. They're easy to use, have an abundance of accessories available, and they make me look very suave when wearing the sleek white earphones. But to me, their biggest fault is the fact that they don't come with support for transferring files on them directly onto a computer.

Luckily, there are many pieces of software that allow you to do this. One of them is iLinkPod. It's very easy to use. Simply connect your iPod to your computer, then launch iLinkPod and click "Select Your iPod". Then you just need to find your iPod in the Finder, and all of the available buttons will be activated, and you can access all of the available functions.

With iLinkPod, you can:

• View the iPod system info.
• Create a folder on your computer and iPod to access the hidden audio files.
• Backup all the files from your iPod onto a destination folder on your computer.
• Stop whichever action is in progress.

iLinkPod Website

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TrailRunner

Ever wondered how far your weekly jog takes you? Or how long you walk during your journey to work each morning? Well wonder no more!

TrailRunner is a route planning application. It doesn't matter what for. Walking, Running, Biking, Hiking, Roller-blading, skiing, or even driving. The maps are loaded from Google

Maps, so you'll get coverage pretty much wherever you are. You can even plot routes through areas without roads, like fields and parks.

You can use TrailRunner to automatically create routes from a destination of your choice. Simply plot any paths near where you want your route, enter a desired length of workout, and TrailRunner will optimise a route for you. It will also tell you how long the route will take at different speeds.

TrailRunner is also compatible with iPhone GPS, Nike + iPod Sports Kit and Garmin Forerunner and Garmin Edge devices to take your running to the next level.

TrailRunner Website

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The Unarchiver

There's nothing more irritating than downloading a compressed file off of the internet, and then discovering that your current decompressor doesn't recognise the file format.

With The Unarchiver, the chance of this happening is greatly reduced. This application can handle a ridiculous amount of formats, including common ones like RAR and ZIP, as well as thirty-four other, more obscure ones like ZOM and CPIO files. You need never experience that oh-so-horrible frustration again. Hooray!

The Unarchiver also comes with a few neat customisation options too, to make your unarchiving process as exhilarating as decompressing a file can possibly be. You can choose to extract the archives to any custom folder of your choice, and you can also have the archive moved to the trash once the files have been extracted. Now that's good decompressing!

The Unarchiving Homepage

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Image Tool

Sometimes, all you want to do is resize a photo, but you don't want to open up a large, resource-hogging application like Photoshop or GIMP.

Image Tool is small (Very small. 372Kb) programme that lets you do that, with minimal fuss. You import an image, click the button with the resizing figure you want, save the new picture as either a JPG, GIF, TIFF, PNG or BMP, and voila! You have a resized image, in less than a minute.

And if you don't want your image resized by one of the default amounts, you can choose to alter either the height or weight to a desired value, and the entire picture is resized to scale.

Image Tool Homepage

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Evernote

There are two main rules, pillars if you will, that I choose to live by.

1. Don't eat yellow snow.
2. You can never have too many to-do notes.

As important as the first rule is, and as much as I'd like to teach you all about it, the second pillar of my beliefs is a lot more apt for this blog.

Evernote is a file uploading service that is in many ways similar to Dropbox. It allows files to be synced to multiple computers, you can view and download the files direct from a browser, and they both have nice little menu icons that appear at the top of your screen. But despite these similarities, Evernote serves an entirely different purpose.

Whereas Dropbox is designed for all types of files, Evernote is specialised to one area. Notes. (It's in the name.) Revision notes, to-do notes, message notes, business notes. They're all covered. You can upload a note by either:

• Typing it in directly.
• Taking a photo of it using any device you want.
• Copying and Pasting.
• Dragging and Dropping them into the desktop client.
• Emailing them directly to your account.
• Scanning the notes.

Once the note is in your account, it is then "synced" to every other device registered with your account. Evernote then scans your images for words and you are able to scan through your immense library of notes for a certain keyword you're interested in. Never again will you forget that sacred Lasagne recipe!

Note: (Forgive the horrible pun)

Registration is required for Evernote, although this is a short process only lasting about a minute. Email, Username and Password are the only required fields.

Evernote Homepage

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Orator

Any of you who are, or have ever been a student will know about the desperate last minute cram before an exam, when revision is packed into every minute possible.

Orator can help squeeze out a bit of revision time no matter where you are. Just write, paste, or drag text into the Orator window, choose one of the twenty-four available voices, and then save the text as an AIFF. These files take up a load of space (about 10Mb per minute), but can be converted to MP3s in iTunes. Then you simply need to upload your file onto your MP3 player, and you're off! Revision. 24/7. Does it really get any better than that?

Orator Homepage

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Vega Strike

I've covered a couple of games on here so far. They were both sit-down-for-a-few-minutes-and-play kinda games. Vega Strike is nothing of the sort.

Vega Strike is an Open Source 3D Action-Space-Simulator that lets you trade, fight and explore its vast universe. If I had to choose just one word to describe Vega Strike, it would be "Epic". Not in the "Epic FaiLZ!" kinda way, or the "EpIc WiNz!" way either. I mean epic as in The Lord of the Rings epic. The scope of this game is absolutely gigantic.

In Vega Strike, you play as the captain of a ship, and the main goal is to 'bring in the dough' in any way possible. You can trade commodities at the many planets and bases scattered about the galaxy, blow up enemy ships, or do missions.

Vega Strike has a pretty enormous learning curve. If you decide to just jump in there and give it a go (like me), you'll end up completely clueless and frustrated at your lack of space-faring abilities (Once again, like me). I strongly advise that you read the player's guide before starting.

The graphics aren't the best, but I suppose that's to be expected with an open source game which is still in development. Above all though, don't download this if you want a game you can dip in and out of every now and then, because this sure as hell isn't one of those, and you'll be a bit disappointed after downloading this 542Mb Disk Image. Although if you do download it, don't give up immediately if it seems too complicated. Like many other good things, this takes time.

Vega Strike Homepage

Vega Strike Wiki