Shahid Online - Tech Corner

The much loved game on iOS was recently released on the Android platform. And, boy, did it take a long time. While waiting, I had to fill the missing gap with clones such as Jetpack Soldier and Run Run Bear (which for some reason is no longer available on the Market). Now I can enjoy the real deal. Though, there is one caveat. Amazon App Store , which has been restricted to the US for a while. Yesterday I received an email from Amazon to download the app and did not need to fiddle around to get it running. This is assuming that you are already downloading apps from outside of Google Play, where your device would be enabled to install from 'Unknown sources'. If not: On your device settings, tap Security . If you don't see that then tap Applications Confirm Unknown Sources is checked. If not, tap the Unknown Sources checkbox. Tap OK on the Attention alert that displays. Now you can install Android apps from outside of Google Play. Once you have downloaded Amazo...

A while back I mentioned about The GIMP being a worth open source alternative to Photoshop. Yes, it is very good and I have used it even for video production. There will be doubters who will still sing praises of Photoshop and not understand that they are encouraging software piracy. So on with the show of encouraging users to pick up free/open source alternatives. The one issue I have (which I consider a limitation) is native Mac OS support, or rather the lack of it. In order to use it you are required to install X11 to utilise this app. However, I did not find it stable and often it crashed out for me on my MacBook Pro quite regularly - a problem which I never faced when using on Linux or Windows. However, it has come to my attention that some Samaritans have saved the day for me and published McGIMP 2.8, which is GIMP 2.8 ported natively for Mac OS X. I have had the pleasure of playing around with it and using it in single window mode. Head over to Partha's Place ( www.pa...

Alright. Here's the deal. Who needs a feature bloated application when you know that you will not need it all and that it's possibly confusing? All hands shot up in my work place when it comes to project management. Some swear by using spreadsheets for everything including PM. Yet, there's the frustration with Microsoft Project. MS Project is an excellent tool but far too complicated for my liking. So I had to search around for project management tools and, as usual, open source was the keyword (especially Windows). Here's a list of notable ones that I found: Achievo ( www.achievo.org ) BORG Calende r ( borg-calendar.sourceforge.net ) - More of a PIM but it's got some nice project management features dotProject ( dotproject.net ) - While being ugly it uses a server backend for enterprise delivery making it a selling point for this package eHour ( www.ehour.nl ) - time management and project management with a slick interface, especially handy for consu...

Yes, you heard me. To celebrate this festive season, SoftMaker has made their excellent alternative to Microsoft Office freely available. On top of this they will donate to charity with every download. With such a commendable act, why not contribute towards a good cause and try out an Office alternative. So head over to Load and Help ( http://www.loadandhelp.de/home-en.html ).

As they did last year, once again Apple has released their "iTunes 12 Days of Christmas" app for users of iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) to treat their customers with seasonal freebies. So expect free games, music, videos and more between 26th December and January 6th. There's already a nice freebie (for some) when you first download it. Just so you know that I'm not kidding, here's the link to the app: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/itunes-12-days-of-christmas/id406478317?mt=8&affId=1896249 Btw, the app itself is free...

I have been a keen user of Ubuntu for some time now, and have to admit that this distribution has improved by leaps and bounds. However, what I do honestly miss on windows is... Dreamweaver. Some will swear by it, some will swear at the mention of its name. But for me, it is a very powerful tool when used correctly. Such a very popular and powerful web design and development tool is available on Windows and Mac OS, but not Linux. If you would just consider, Adobe has already supported the platform with their Adobe Reader and Adobe Air. Why is Dreamweaver not available? It just seems that there's not such a huge call for it so they just don't see the need to put in an effort for another platform. One chap at Adobe suggested to use Dreameaver under wine , but it doesn't work so great. There is an alternative to wine which, according to a user on the forums, works flawlessly - Crossover . However, the former option is not free, so some may be dissuaded where they woul...

Yes. It is long overdue. So here's another for the bookmarks: bit.ly (http://bit.ly) An absolutely brilliant tool for shortening a URL. Particularly when sharing long links to websites in your blogs, tweets and emails. Need I say more?