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Manage your e-book library with Calibre for Mac

For those with certain e-reader devices, working with e-books on a computer can be difficult. Calibre for Mac is a free program that helps you manage your e-book libraries and create e-books from other sources for use on portable devices.

Calibre for Mac is an open-source freeware program, and it's easy to download and install. The initial setup is easy, but requires an e-mail address to link to the user's e-reader. Once this is done, the user is prompted to go to an outside Web site for more instructions on using the program, and some streaming demonstration videos. … Read more

Download Files with SpeedTao for Mac

Faster connection speeds and more powerful computers make you want to download larger file types, but most browsers' built-in features are not capable of this level of usage. Luckily, SpeedTao for Mac is a download management program that tries to increase your control and help manage your entire list of file downloads. It can also restart stopped downloads.

SpeedTao for Mac is a download management tool with a dedicated interface. This program is simple but it allows the user to easily download a variety of file types from many different sources. It can also eliminate the frustration of stopped or … Read more

Asia chatter predicts increase in cost of Retina iPad Mini

Chatter in Asia has it that the total cost of the iPad Mini could increase by almost a third -- though no word on whether that would impact price.

Commentary in Digitimes, which is close to the chain of component suppliers in Asia, said the jump to a Retina screen means adding costly display components.

If iPad mini adopts the Retina display, the dots per inch (DPI) will be higher and the brightness of the backlight modules will have to improve. This also means the number of LEDs used will...[increase the total cost] by more than 30% if it … Read more

Edit photos on your mobile device with Camera Effects

With the advent of high-resolution and quality cameras built into mobile devices there has been a surge of camera applications. Most of these applications do not actually make it possible to edit the photo extensively, but rather apply a filter over the image to achieve the desired effect. Camera Effects is one of these applications, but it offers high-quality effects and fairly decent picture quality.

Since it's a pretty light application, Camera Effects loads very quickly. The main screen is a full-size viewfinder. This app only allows the user to edit photos taken with the application, and it will … Read more

Exact Duplicate Finder finds and removes duplicates on the go

Duplicate file finders were critical back in the pre-gigabyte era, but in some ways, today's terabyte-capacity drives make the problem just as bad. Not for space reasons, obviously, but because duplicates clog up your file system with redundant data that your computer still has to process. Duplicate files can make your searches take longer and return confusing or contradictory results. Enough duplicates together can even cause your system to run more slowly. And if you boot from a solid-state drive (SSD), particularly a smaller one, you're probably just as concerned about duplicates as users were back when hard … Read more

New petition calls for OpenGL 4.3 and ZFS in OS X

Ars Technica reports that a new online petition has been created to request that Apple bring the ZFS file system to OS X, along with support for the more advanced OpenGL 4.3 libraries.

ZFS is a relatively new file system format, which Apple hinted at supporting in developer builds of OS X 10.5, and was expected to debut in Snow Leopard; however, the company ended up dropping support for the format following disagreements with Sun Microsystems. The support for ZFS has since fallen to several third-party efforts such as the open-source MacZFS project.

Though Apple's native HFS+ … Read more

Stay in sync with SugarSync Manager

The name SugarSync Manager might conjure up images of a pimply teen sullenly manning a pinktacular technology-themed candy store, but the reality is far more pleasant: SugarSync is an online storage, sync, and sharing service, and SugarSync Manager is its software client. (Yes, the client is the "manager.")

SugarSync works similarly to other top software in its category--users install the free SugarSync Manager on any computers and devices they wish to connect; they select the folders that they want it to back up and/or sync online; and then SugarSync automatically keeps their data up-to-date and synced on … Read more

HEVC video standard finished; high-end improvements coming

An array of companies have finished work on video compression technology called HEVC or H.265 that promises better video to start with and that paves the way for higher-end extensions next year, they announced today.

The High Efficiency Video Codec supports 4K "UltraHD" video -- and perhaps 8K as well if the video industry can convince buyers that so many pixels are worthwhile. Perhaps more important, given how many people watch video online these days, it doubles video quality for a given network data capacity.

HEVC has the potential to spread very widely indeed. It's the … Read more

Picture your weather with Instaweather app

A picture is worth a thousand words, but even that might not tell the whole story. If you want a unique way to describe where you are, InstaWeather Free can add some cool details to your smartphone photos, such as the city name, location data, and temperature. It's fun for a few shots, but the thrill doesn't last long.

Though the app makes you think it's connected to Instagram, there's no real link. The app can share your finished product on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, though. You can take a picture right from the app and … Read more