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You've got a high-resolution camera, an Internet connection, an iPhone or iPad, and an itch to share your photos with your friends and the world. What to do? Enter the free iOS photo-editing app Pic Stitch, allowing you to easily combine, filter, and change photos on your device and share them with friends.

Pic Stitch's interface is surprisingly simple to navigate considering how many features it includes. The free version of the app does have periodic ads, and quite a few features require paid upgrades to use in full, but every core feature is available for free.

When using photos taken from a digital camera, people sometimes find that the file size can make displaying and sending images problematic. Image Smith for Mac allows users to easily compress these photos for use on the Web or elsewhere.

Available as a free trial version, Image Smith for Mac has a 15-day usage limit. Unlocking the full version requires a payment of $15.95. The program's native installer worked well and the program was up and running quickly after we accepted a lengthy user agreement. Support is available and regular updates have come out to fix any bugs. … Read more

While plenty of things are common in the business world, two things stand out: 1) cell phones, and 2) PDFs. What do they have to do with each other? Just this: Images taken with cell phone cams, digital cameras, and even scanners are now commonplace in business, legal, and personal documents, most of which are saved as PDFs. But the process of transferring images from one of these devices might be daunting enough as it is (even if you had time to read the manuals) let alone opening, resizing, and converting them all to PDFs before you can even begin … Read more

Are you in need of a robust yet quick archive opener that can handle a multitude of file types? Zipeg for Mac is all this and a little more. It can handle .zip, .rar, .7z, .z, .tar, .gz, .tgz, .bz2, and other exotic archive types, and it particularly excels at large archives.

With Zipeg for Mac you can see the files contained in the archive and manually select the ones you wish to expand, leaving unselected files unexpanded. By processing only what matters to you, less space is wasted on your hard drive and you wait less time as the … Read more

There's something for everyone when it comes to free media players, from complex open-source do-it-alls to supersimple consoles for watching videos and playing MP3s. Goforsharing's Aktiv Player's advantage is a built-in SQL database for organizing and managing even large music collections. Its Dynamic Playlists not only randomize playback but also learn from your preferences to play what you like based on what you've played the most. Aktiv Player also edits tags and exports data. Extras include Net radio, equalizer and crossfader settings, command-line support, and plug-ins.

Aktiv Player's user interface focuses on the program's … Read more

While still rare, spyware affecting Mac operating systems has gained more attention in recent years. MacScan for Mac provides an effective and supported solution.

Available as a free demo version for 30 days, MacScan for Mac requires a $39.99 payment in order to continue its use. Despite the program's large size, the installation process went well. The user is immediately prompted to install updated spyware and tracking cookie definition files after starting the program for the first time, and MacScan automatically checks for updates regularly. The clean, simple interface should be familiar to any virus scan user. Large, … Read more

Backing up your computer is a necessary evil that can save you some headaches down the road. However, actually remembering to do it is easier said than done. @MAX SyncUp automates backup to wherever you want it to, but requires you to pay up.

Finding all the options for your files isn't difficult thanks to the program's clean user interface. While a one-time payment of $45 is competitive with that of other automated backup services, it's still not cheap. Those programs usually offer more speeds and cloud storage options, too. @MAX SyncUp can store your backup to … Read more

Is your Android device vulnerable to viruses and malware? Short answer: Yes. While threats to Android aren't yet on a par with Windows malware, it's a growth market, so it only makes sense to take steps to protect yourself and your device. Downloading apps only from the Play Store is probably the easiest way to keep your Android device safe from malware, but AVG Anti Virus Free for Android offers extra protection. This free app from one of the most trusted names in antivirus protection scans your Android smartphone or device for vulnerabilities such as unsecured settings and … Read more

Spotflux is a free encrypted VPN client that routes your Internet traffic through a series of secure servers that mask your actual IP and make it virtually impossible to trace the connection back to your computer. Unlike some VPN clients, Spotflux is easy enough for anyone to use.

Spotflux has a unique Setup wizard that offers more options than most installers, including extra software we declined to install. The first thing Spotflux did when it launched was to secure our Internet connection by changing our settings to conform to the secure network's servers. Our browser opened with our secure … Read more