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Whether you want to use an interesting video as your screensaver, or would like to use your screensaver to display marketing and promotional material, this app provides an interesting solution. SaveHollywood for Mac enables you to use your own videos, including flash, QuickTime and other formats, as a screensaver. It can also be used as a solution to watch QuickTime videos in fullscreen. This non-intrusive app works great and offers some customization options.

The installation process for SaveHollywood for Mac literally takes seconds. Once it's installed, you can access the app via your Desktop and Screensavers in the Mac … Read more

Sketch n Draw Pad HD is a free drawing app for Android devices. With a variety of brushes, effects, and other drawing tools, it's a neat, little tool for drawing and painting, editing photos, and other basic image editing chores. It's free, but it's supported by Airpush ads. In the end, the ads are just too persistent and annoying to keep this app. That's a shame because Sketch n Draw Pad HD has potential. We tried it in a Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.1.1.

Sketch n Draw Pad HD doesn't let you … Read more

Split Pic 2.0 - Clone Yourself, Better is a neat little app that lets you snap three different pictures to create a fun effect. The problem, however, is that the app is so full of ads that it ruins the user experience.

As soon as you run Split Pic 2.0, you're bombarded with ad after ad, and we very nearly tapped each one by accident. Once you can bypass them, you're greeted with the main menu, which has yet another banner ad slapped on the lower half of the screen. From there, you can select between … Read more

As children use smartphones more often, monitoring their use has become important. TruSpy works well as a hidden application and has a number of useful features for parents tracking cell phone use.

The program offers a free trial version with a 48-hour time limit. Full functioning requires payment of a subscription at a daily rate that varies depending on the length of time of the contract. TruSpy downloads quickly, but installation took longer than expected. At startup, the user is prompted to sign up for an account through the developer. Once completed, the application installs on the phone, but does … Read more

The newest version of iOS has a built-in text-to-speech function that will mechanically read any words on the page to users with learning or sight impairments. It is easy to turn on and works fairly well for most apps and all Web browsing. For those that have more robust text-to-speech needs or that want to communicate with other people through the text-to-speech function, SpeakText FREE is a potentially useful app.

The app's biggest issue is the poorly executed user interface. Lacking clear menus, busied by excess and animated ads, and not taking advantage of the space available on the … Read more

Designed to convert text to speech in a variety of settings, either in the original language or translated into one of a handful of languages in its libraries, SpeakText for Web FREE could be a very useful app. Because the voice files are downloaded before you start, the process is relatively quick and accurate; but an obtuse design, steep pricing structure, and lack of clear direction make it an app only suited for a small number of users.

The first thing to know about the SpeakText apps is that the core software is designed for three different uses, and this … Read more

At first glance, SpeakText for Office FREE seems like a redundant app. It uses text-to-speech technology to read what is onscreen, either in the original language or translated. Of course, the iPad and iPhone come with text-to- speech software, so what purpose does this app have beyond centralizing it into a single space? For the most part, the text-to-speech functions are efficient, but the restrictions with the free version and high cost of the upgrade lessen this app's usefulness.

The free version of SpeakText for Office has limitations on the number of sentences you can have spoken or translated. … Read more

The SpeakText line of apps is designed to provide a more robust suite of tools for text-to-speech integration on your iOS devices, including translation into over 30 languages. SpeakText for Me FREE combines the abilities of several SpeakText apps, but has quite a few shortcomings, not the least of which is a pretty hefty price tag if you opt to upgrade from the limited free version.

The interface for SpeakText for Me FREE is the most immediate issue. Messy, ad-supported, and sprawling, it lacks the clear direction and sharp design needed to recommend a paid upgrade. It actually proved fairly … Read more

Re-coloring a photo is an easy way to add a quick artistic flare. This app can add hundreds of different colors and shades to your photos. Color Touch is a little ad-happy, but it makes up for it with an easy-to-figure-out layout and cool coloring effects. There are enough options to keep the app fresh and cool through multiple uses.

The app appears as "Color Effects" in both your phone's app menu and the app's layout, itself. It makes you sign up for status bar and browser hijacking ads, too. If you accept, the app takes … Read more