Save Money with MobilePhoneDeals.Me

March 14th, 2013

mobilephonedeals_meI thought I would write a quick review of MobilePhoneDeals.Me, a website I used recently to buy my latest mobile phone. MobilePhoneDeals.Me is a fairly new mobile phone comparison service pitching itself as minimalist with powerful features. This site has stripped back navigation so it is easy to find key information and guides. It also has a simple but very powerful tool for comparing different offers on all the important criteria.

Most other comparison sites we looked at either have poor search features, for example not ordering deals properly in terms of price, or not having very complete lists of offers. At the other extreme are sites which have too many options, being able to search on detailed phone features, colours etc, which frankly are a waste of time these days, when pretty well any phone will do what the majority of people need.

Another useful feature of Mobile Phone Deals Me is that it will show you the number of deals found inside its search widget without you having to reload the page which saves time and bandwidth.

Another big advantage is that you can use this site on your mobile phone, it is iroinic that most mobile phone deal sites do not allow you to search from your mobile phone!

The search widget also does a nice trick of following you down the page so that you can always refine your search without having to move back up the page.

So, all this is ok, but does it save you money?

Well, most of these sites list similar deals, I have no doubt that the deal i found would be available on many other sites, but the key to it all is how the deals are ordered. Some sites favour certain brands or retailers based on payout, this site is independant and seems to make an effort to ensure their users get the best price.

They also allow you to order by different types of deal, and different pricing structures, so you can search for the lowest line rental, lowest total cost, most cashback etc.

It also allows you to search for free gifts and has some information on getting free laptops with phones. Interestingly they do not really try to convince you free laptop deals are the best thing since sliced bread but have some useful info on making sure the deals really do offer value for money, and even suggest other sites that can help you get a better deal if the ones on their site do not look too good!

To give you some idea of what this site can do, I saved over 20% on my mobile deal compared to another comparision site I tried, I think that speaks for itself really, so if you want to get some legit advice and a great deal, take a look at mobilephonedeals.me!

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Recite text with Dragon Dictate on your iPad

November 8th, 2012

logo_dragondictationUsing notepad and Office is slowly becoming obsolete. Nowadays many people prefer to dictate the text and let the software to capture the voice and write it down. This is where Dragon Dictation by Nuance Communications comes into the picture and the astonishing thing about this app is that it is available for free. Over a period of time Dragon Dictation has added more voice samples so that text conversion from voice becomes much more easy and convenient and till now they have succeeded to a certain extent. This feature has been updated for small devices such as iPhone, iPod, and iPad as well as on desktop application. According to few reports Apple has tied with Nuance Communications for improving the voice search capability (SIRI) for their new iPhone which tells you how good this app really is. Dragon Naturally Speaking by Nuance Communications is quite famous among desktop users for many years.

Dragon Dictation is optimized specifically for iPads. Before using the Dragon Dictation app it must be specified that the user needs to develop their dictation skills to make the app more useful. Dictation is not as easy it may seem to be because application has default behavior with which the voice is detected clearly and according to their need. Learning to dictate is like learning to read which must be start afresh. The speed of dictation is also very important. Before using this app it is recommended to test your typing speed. After this dictate the written text used for written test in Dragon Dictation app on your iPad. The dictation to text conversion at the same time you finish the dictation. It is quite obvious that reading will be much faster than the writing process. If you are a new user and never used any dictation software before, reading text will take some time as the speed of dictation must match with the speed of extracting text from the speech. Dictation requires deliberate thinking but using the Dragon Dictation app undo the dictation and manually edit the completed text. Dragon Dictation app is not meant for improving the writing ability of the users but it helps in reducing the task of manual writing.

Before using this kind of software practice dictation as there is no substitution for it in the software. You must not be concerned with the grammar and spelling of the ext just look at the text and check whether you have dictated the same text or not. Dragon Dictation app can also be used for practicing dictation. Open the app and start to dictate, it may happen that the program will automatically stop the dictation and reinitiate tap the recording button and continue the process from where you were stopped. Dragon Dictation app is said to be 98% accurate and with commands such as comma, new line, period the app will automatically put comma, add new line or paragraph and add period to the text. Numbers can also be dictated on this amazing app. There are some small issues with this app which is related to the proper noun, special names and homonyms.

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Make more use of the battery power on your Android device

November 8th, 2012

Mobile devices are getting sleeker, faster and bigger and the majority of the problem is faced by the battery. Many high–end devices battery needs charging every single day which is very less than many older handsets. This can be attributed to the fact that Smartphone’s has become more graphically demanding and bigger display consumes lot of battery power. The only option left available for those users is to buy a new pair of battery which is not cheap. Android users will know how the battery annoys them. To solve battery problem an app is introduced which is known as JuiceDefender. This app is currently in the beat version but is quite stable and smooth to use on Android devices and is available for free in the Google Play. The size of this app is also very small and is around 1.5Mb only which only takes couple of minutes to complete the download.

The interface of the JuiceDefender app is cool and stylish and not filed with unnecessary information. There are many profiles on this app to choose from or you an also customize It according to your needs. JuiceDefender is disabled by default and you need to enable it by tapping on the enable option. Balanced is the default profile but you can also find other profile such as aggressive, extreme, advanced and customize. All the profiles are not available in this app because it is a free version but the interface will give you information reading the features of the profile and which of them is available on the paid version of the app. For example, aggressive profile is available in this free version but the extreme profile is not. It is observed that the app might restart to show that this profile is not available and upgrade is required to use this feature. The customize option will throw you settings tab that will have several options to chose from. Many of the options in this profile cannot be changed which might be helpful for saving battery life. But it given a general idea about the paid version of this app will be. The Ultimate version is the best paid version of this app and it is very powerful than the free version as well as paid version Plus.

JuiceDefender app saves the battery by closing those applications which   are enabled by default and is unnecessarily consuming battery. Take for example, Wi-Fi connection which is used for listening to radio or similar type of activities. The radio application will be closed and after fifteen or twenty minutes the app will check whether the Wi-Fi connection is available or not, if the connection is not available it will close the application again. By this simple process the battery life gets longer and it helps in freeing users from the burden of closing the unnecessary connections. Turning off data is also helpful is saving the battery life and you can use the app for specifying the time period in which it will be switched off. Enable it, select the profile and forgot it and the app will take care of your battery problems.

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Learn about new places of visit by using Ask a Nomad app

November 8th, 2012

All of us love to travel around the world and try new things around there such as good food and places to visit. But the problem is how a person could know about them if they are new to the place; they can take the help of travel guide which will contain all the necessary information about the places. There is another kind of scenario in which there is no information about the pace you are visiting because it may not be famous or might be cheap, that shouldn’t stop people from visiting those places. The fun of traveling is you experience new things in the course of journey. Ask a Nomad app is one such app which is helpful in finding the information regarding the places you are currently visiting. This app from WorldNomads is available for free on the iPad. This website helps in managing the Ask a Nomad app service which can be used by travelers to ask questions related to the place from the locals and from the people who already have visited that place before. This app is meant for asking the answering queries related to travel.

To use this app one must find the correct location. Nearby option serves you the questions and answers regarding the places near to the current location specified. You can also browser from the Continent option on the left side of the panel. The continent option will take you to the countries and to the cities. There are already many questions which are answered before by the people who have visited those places before and it is recommended to look at the answers as you might find helpful. Regional wise answers to the questions are also present in this app. There might be some questions which you find very interesting and want to follow it closely for future reference, to add this topic to your favorite list tap on the star option. You can also contribute towards the app by answering questions related to the places you have visited but to do that you need to have an account. If someone ahs answered the questions you were following before, the updates will be made available by the app at the bottom of the display. Searching by keywords is also made possible by this Ask a Nomad app but sometimes it doesn’t always work. The guide may not be broader but it is also not that bad. This kind of searching is quick and the searches you have performed before are also stored which makes it easily accessible.

Creating an account with the iPad is plain and simple and it takes only few minutes to complete the process. You just need to fill out the name, username, password and e-mail address blocks to complete the process. You can then manage you profile by adding pictures, choose name, tell about yourself and so on. Big blue button on the bottom of the screen is uses for asking questions and after that enter the subject or whole question if it is small. Add your answer button is taped to answer the following questions.

 

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Get tailored magazines and News reader on your iPad

November 8th, 2012

Readers for RSS feeders and magazine style is now very common in Apple market such as Pulse and many of them are very good app for reading. But there is a new addition to this list which is Zite and will good competition to others without a doubt. iPad as a device is considered to be great for reading personalized magazines, PDF and websites and by downloading them on your iPad will not be same as keeping a file saved in the folder. Zite app is useful for providing the users with customization and newspaper style reading feature. By tapping a button you can also get the all the latest news material. Let’s look at how Zite app works more closely.

After the completion of downloading and installing the app start the app, users will be greeted with a window which specifies them to create magazine using Twitter or Google Reader. Zite default behavior is that it doesn’t start downloading the content from Google Reader and it uses reader for selecting the particular topic user are concerned with. If you don’t have Twitter or Google Reader you can skip this process by clicking on the Skip this step button. The affect of this step will a complete new window in which you will be given a list of topic to choose from and the selected topic will be downloaded for you. Topics include Gaming, Sports, Politics, technology, gadget and so on. Tap on the topic to initiate the procedure. If the list is not sufficient for you can type keywords for searching the topics according to your liking such as Jokes, Paolo Alto etc. The problem in this procedure is that the topics are not very broad and wait for few seconds to look whether the topic you have searched for is available or not.

Zite has the capability to provide magazine style layout on the selected topics or categories from a website. What makes Zite so special among its competitor is that you now don’t have to flip through unnecessary contents which you are not interested in such as advertisements. The major problem with the current version of Zite is that the incapability of entering RSS feed source and particular websites. But wide ranges of topics are available for users to choose from. To tell Zite app about how you liked reading the topic by clicking on the yes or no button on the right side bar. From the Give me more from option you can get more topics from any particular website or any author. Every time you launch Zite app the contents will be refreshed automatically. Magazine style layout is also very interesting feature of this app but the application hangs for few second before opening the selected article. The UI of this layout is easily navigable and not very crowded and you will be provided with three types of text and text styles to choose from. The article will open in the web browser. Only Safari web browser must be used to read the content. Sharing the article through email, Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz is fast and easy.

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Best doodling apps on iPad

November 8th, 2012

Reading article on iPad with e reader application is very easy and simple and just like that creating art and doodles on the iPad has also become very easy. iPad now can be treated as the best perfect device for the purpose of doodling and creating art on the go. It doesn’t matter whether you are creative type of person or not, downloading free apps and using it won’t be harmful either. The three best apps for this purpose based on interactive and smoothness are given below.

1) Draw for iPad: As the name suggest it is used for drawing on the iPad and it is one of the best free apps for iPad in the market. The menu buttons consists of undo and redo buttons which is very unique and prominent on the app. Many paid drawing apps doesn’t have this simple and most useful editing feature which can be very annoying who are regular users of drawing apps. On the menu bar the clear button is also present which is helpful in clearing the slate if you made some mistakes and ant to start afresh. Other features of this app include Tic-tac-toe, ABC word games and dots. Nine color pencils are available while drawing in case of simple drawing. The brushes are smooth and the color pencils can be easily located on the menu bar of user interface. Saving it in the iPad Photo app is simple but you can also share the drawing with your friends with the help of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Another very interesting feature of this app is that you can share it on the Twitter account. This app may not have some of the complex and standard features such as stroke size or vector art but it is fun to use and the drawing is completed smoothly. The latest version o this software is 1.0.2 and the size of this app is only 5.6 MB. It requires iOS version 3.2 or higher to run without any problem.

2) Draw It: Drawing is a simple task and any application should make it easy for the users and Draw It app is the safest best for it. Another good alternative of the Draw for iPad this app is also very simple and easy to use. This app misses out on the features which are available in Draw but they compensate it with color and size change of the brush stroke. This app provides provision for changing the background color as well as importing pictures from your picture collection. To export the drawing save it on the saved images folder or you can also email it. Unlike Draw this app has no button for undo and it is specified that shaking the device will erase the drawing. This feature doesn’t always work and not very convenient. Shaking an iPad is not like shaking iPhone or iPod, hence not very good. Overall this is a nice alternative but not very good like the Draw app which we discussed earlier.

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Best Comics reader for iPad

November 8th, 2012

Reading comics is hobby for young people as well as adults. Many adults till date collects and reads comics books for fun. But in this internet day and age not may people are hooked to comics as it used to be which is very sad but is now slowly gaining acceptance among users. This phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that new movies are released based on comics superheroes. Comic’s popularity is also growing on devices such as iPad and iPhone and now people can read them in a new and exciting way. If you are iPad user then you have the best device to read comics on the go. The large screen of the iPad and crystal clear display make it more fun and enjoyable to read comics. There are many apps which are available in the Apple market which are specially developed for this type of task. Reading the comics through iPad is not only pleasant but also won’t reduce the true value of comics as users won’t be physically touching them to read it. All the apps which are discussed here are free apps and specifically for the iPad but also can be used on iPhone and iPod.

1) Comics By comiXology: This is a comic store where there are more than 25 publishers are available with their 20000 comics or more. The publishers include Marvel, DC, Red 5, BOOM Studios, The Walking Dead and more which can be read on devices as well as on the web. With the use of Guided View Technology reading comics on small screen devices is much more fun than anyone anticipated. The advantage of using this technology is that the pages of the comics are intact and moving through panels is dynamic in nature. More than 500 free comics are available for the app. The size of this app is 10.7 MB and the current version is 3.1.5.

2) Marvel Comics by Marvel Entertainment: This is an official app from Marvel comics and it offers user with a complete new experience way of reading comics. The advantage of using this app is that you will now have your favorite characters like Iron Man, Spiderman, Wolverine, Thor and many more on your fingertip.  Just tap a button of your favorite Apple device such as iPad and start enjoying your personal heroes. The view can be changes according to your needs such as animated or panel-by-panel or you can use your device capability to zoom in and zoom out of the page without loosing the amazing graphics and contents. To protect you download comics it is recommended to create a Marvel account.

3) Archie Comics By iVerse Media: This store can be used to save all your collections of Archie’s comic book series. The numbers of comic books are always increasing. It also supports retina display for the iPad. There are more than 1200 Archie comic with more than 40 complete novels.

iPad has the ability to provide all the standard features to enjoy comic on the device.

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