The image quality of the screen captures is very nice, as witnessed in the snaps below of my seven home screens on the HTC EVO 4G. I simply popped up the desired screen, shook the phone and the image was stored. ShootMe is free in the Android Market and once installed it sits in the background waiting for a shake. It takes little resources on the phone and is always at your beck and call, err… shake.

I’ve seen reports that ShootMe also takes an image when you shout at your phone. It supposedly listens for a sudden loud noise and snaps the screen when it hears it. I haven’t tested this, the shake is good enough for me.

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Why is TouchMouse useful? A number of scenarios come to mind — controlling a media center from the sofa is one, or how about giving a presentation and using the iPhone to control the slides? I tested the latter on both my Mac and a PC and this worked flawlessly. I was able to get as far from the notebook as desired, since Wi-Fi requires no line of sight, and advanced the slides at will.

Logitech TouchMouse is free and in addition to the iPhone app — available in the App Store — a server application must be downloaded for the computer. There are Windows and Mac versions of the server software at the TouchMouse web site.

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It might not be as pretty as the official clients, but WinMoSquare offers a solid option to the Foursquare mobile web site. Thanks to some Foursquare APIs, the software supports check-ins, adding locations and peeking in as to where your friends are. But there are some limitations, too. Namely, you can’t check the leaderboards, nor can you find or add new friends. I don’t think those are deal-breaking limits — I don’t believe I can do some of those things on the Android app; I often have to go to the mobile web site to approve friend requests, for example.

The developer, Anand Iyer, indicates that he’s looking to add new features as Foursquare exposes more of its APIs. Once he hits v.1 with WinMoSquare, Iyer intends to submit it to the Windows Mobile Marketplace as well. You might want to “check in” there occasionally to see when the app arrives for your Windows Mobile 6.1 and up device.

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Download Squad points out Curb, a free solution that cleans out the trash on removable drives with Mac OS X. I installed the small app this morning and it works as advertised. It couldn’t be easier to dump the extra trash bits from a USB drive either — simply drag the removable drive on to Curb and it takes care of the rest. The result is a squeaky-clean flash drive.

With Curb, you can be prompted for trash removal or have the software simply wipe data without asking. And the application supports three secure removal options as well — Single Pass, 7-pass and 35-pass — plus an option to zero out all blocks after overwriting. I’d love to see Apple build this type of functionality into the native Trash Bin. Instead of dragging a USB drive for ejection, the OS could securely wipe the drive. Until then, I’m using Curb which can be found on the MRR Software site.

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Android Guys points out that there is — it’s called Apps Organizer and it’s freely available in the Android Marketplace. With it, you’re essentially creating app folders, but with a twist. You can apply labels to your applications, which helps to automatically organize and group your handset software. Upon installation, Apps Organizer scans your Android device so it knows what apps you already have and lumps them together with standard labels like Android, Games, Internet and more. At that point, you can apply your own custom labels for organization. And adding a labels shortcut is a snap — just long press your home screen, choose shortcuts and you’ll see an option for Apps Organizer. Selecting it provides a list of your labels that can be added to your device.

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I’m a sucker for nearly every kind of data synchronization tool on the planet — case in point: today’s news of Mozilla’s Weave Sync add-on beta for browser data. So when I read on Lifehacker that Microsoft updated their SyncToy power tool to version 2.1, I had to share the details. SyncToy generally does one thing, but it does it well: it replicates files and folders from one place into another. Using Echo mode, you replicate files on the left to files on the right, while the Synchronize mode syncs data in both directions. A third mode, Contribute, copies from left to right, but doesn’t delete any data.

Version 2.1 of the free tool doesn’t add much new functionality, but does include new features:

• Better Performance: The speed of file copy operations is significantly increased across the board.
• Improved Robustness: Much more resilient to transient network and file system errors and better error reporting which pin-points which file the sync failed on in case there’s a fatal error that stops the sync.
• Folder pair configuration backup: Folder pair configuration is automatically backed up under %localappdata%microsoftsynctoy2.0. User can replace SyncToyDirPairs.bin with the backup copy to resolve last saved configuration.
• Fixed the data corruption issue when using SyncToy with NAS drives.
• Fixed the issue that prevented uploading files to SharePoint when using SyncToy 2.0.
• Fixed the issue that prevented delete changes from being synchronized when the sync option is set to “Echo”
• Fixed the UI issue where reported file time were off by the difference between local time and UTC when destination is a FAT volume.

The free SyncToy is avaialble directly from Microsoft and is supported on Windows XP, Vista and 7. I have it installed on my netbook and use it to keep audio files in sync between the Windows XP and Windows 7 partitions.

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Up to now, I’d access Google Voice on my Mac or netbook right through my web browser. But over the weekend, I started using a nice Adobe AIR implementation of Google Voice called GVoice. Even cooler is the fact that one of our own readers created it! RStoeber is a regular here at jkOnTheRun, and he pinged me to share the app. I’ve been running it nonstop ever since he told me about it — you can find it here, along with a few other projects.

In this early version, the app is exactly like the mobile version I see on my iPhone. Voicemails even play within GVoice — I tested it with a message James left me because Google’s translation went awry in a few spots. Since GVoice runs on Adobe AIR, it’s cross-platform so I can run it on either my Mac, my PC or a Linux box. While I could just leave a tab open in my browser for Google Voice, I like this standalone implementation better. It refreshes the Inbox every minute, so I’m always up to date on my voicemails and text messages without having to look at my phone. Of course, I can send texts from it or initiate a call to a contact from one of my two phones, as well. Developers started to add Growl support to Adobe AIR last November, so a future version of GVoice could support instant notifications of messages, too.

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XPize is the product of a project run by volunteer developers, and it updates many of the UI elements in Windows XP to make them look fresher. It adds a number of nice visual styles that don’t change Windows XP; they just make it look more modern. It is perfect for netbooks, most of which run XP. Give it a try if you want to spruce up that old XP interface. There is also a Vize for you Vista users, and the group plans a Sevenize once Windows 7 is released.

(via I Started Something)

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Phil pointed out another useful battery meter utility, and since I’ve been taking a closer look at Windows 7 on my UMPC (more on that later), the timing is perfect. I’m always looking at different battery meters because I like to auto-hide the Windows taskbar on the small screen. That, in turn, hides the native battery icon in the Windows system tray. Business Hacks thinks that BattCursor could work for folks like me. The free app adds your remaining battery level percentage to the cursor on your screen.

That might sound annoying, but you can customize the transparency level of the notification. And your cursor can be configured to turn yellow or red when the battery level gets close to the critical level. The software can even turn your Aero Glass windows yellow or red as you approach a low battery level. The BattCursor devs say this uses an undocumented feature of Windows, so that function could disappear. As your battery levels decline, the utility can auto-dim your screen and disable Aero Glass in order to save a wee bit more juice.

BattCursor runs on Microsoft Windows Vista and 7, at least up to the Release Candidate of the latter. Thanks, Phil!

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The highly flexible media application is part of the Portable Apps suite, which means you can carry VLC on a flash drive in your pocket. The download is 20MB, but will only take up to 37MB on your flash drive. The portable version has may of the same features as the latest desktop version and supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg and many other media formats.

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The free program offers on-the-go translation of simple words and phrases. The translated phrase appears on the screen and can be played in audio with the tap of a button. Having a translator in your pocket can turn a difficult situation into a good one and the program is free, so trying it out is simple.

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Lifehacker must have sensed my immediate need because they mentioned the free MixMeister BPM Analyzer for Windows and Mac today. The software is really meant for the DJ scene, but BPM means the same to DJs and runners, so I grabbed it. You just drop tracks or whole folders in and the software will analyze the music to figure the BPM. I have one or two iTunes DRM-protected albums and it didn’t work on those, but all of my other music looks supported. MixMeister updates the ID3 tags of the files, too, although I had to do a “Get Info” on my music files to see the change take place. That feature should help me make a few smart playlists for various workouts. After this, I might have to splurge for one of the Nike+ sensors for tracking data since the new iPhone supports it. Wow, the hardest part of my workout will just be the running part after all this tech. ;)

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For a while, I tried to use my iPhone camera to capture and carry the barcodes around, but it’s just not suited for close-up, detailed photos. I’d say I had a 50 percent or so success rate with that method.

The Consumerist just made mention of CardStar, which you can find in the iTunes App Store. It’s currently free, but only for a limited time, so I just nabbed it. At some point, it will cost 99 cents, which I still think is a bargain. CardStar doesn’t need the barcode image from your reward cards. Instead, you simply enter the numbers from your card and CardStar creates the barcode for you. It makes for a much cleaner look and should be easily readable when at the store. CardStar includes support for over 190 merchants, and you can add your own using the Advanced features.

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Richer in what way, you ask? Skyfire supports Flash 10 and Silverlight 2.0, so you can get your YouTube and Hulu on, to name just a few sites that are often taboo on handset browsers. And the Skyfire folks added a real-time activity wall recently, too. With it, you can find all of your favorite RSS feeds, Twitter updates and Facebook statuses.

Have a look at the new version, demonstrated by Skyfire’s CEO, Nitin Bhandari, and tell me you don’t want to download this app.

http://www.youtube.com/v/kESdESjyOdA&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

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For some reason, the 16GB SD memory card I was using suddenly got hosed. I’m not blaming the new camera because I’ve had this same problem with the older XSi that the T1i replaced and I’ve even seen it happen with my Kodak Zi6. I can’t determine the exact cause, but at random times, the cameras simply can’t read the card. They know the card is there, but the files can’t be seen nor can I format the card using the camera. Essentially, the memory card becomes utterly useless…and so does the camera I’m trying use.

I formatted the hosed card a number of times on both my Mac and PCs. The formatting always did what it was supposed to: the computers were able to read and write to the card with no issue. However, the camera still couldn’t see the card. I tend to swap and use this card on all three cameras plus I’m mounting the card back and forth on PCs and a Mac, so I’m likely causing the issue. Regardless of the cause, I was all set to make a Best Buy run for a new card, when I tried one, last-ditch solution. And it worked.

I hit up the official SD Association web site looking for any help and I found a free utility called SD Formatter. The software is supported on Microsoft Windows 2000, XP and Vista, but I used it on the release candidate of Windows 7 without a hitch. All the software does is format SD memory cards but it “complies with the official SD memory card requirements.” That was enough credibility for me to try it.

I’m assuming that based on the options I chose (Full Format, Erase On) that the application does a byte-level format based on the real-time status, and because of the lengthy amount of time it took to format the 16GB card. I didn’t time it, but I’d guess that it ran for at least 45 minutes. Once completed, the card finally worked again in my Ti1. Going forward, I think I’ll only use this card in the T1i and in a card reader with my MacBook. I do my photo and video processing on a Mac, so I’ll take the PC and other cameras out of the equation to see if I gain some stability.

While I can’t guarantee that SD Formatter will “save” your hosed SD cards, it’s free to try and just might save you from tossing out that memory.

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Have you ever lost data due to file corruption? Jonathan Greene lost around 100 digital pictures recently. Actually, his Nikon D70s did that for him and he wasn’t happy at all about it. The digital camera somehow corrupted the photos on the CompactFlash storage card and Jonathan figured that he’d never see those images again. Since they were from his son’s birth, it’s not like he could set up for a re-shoot. Luckily PhotoRec rescued every single image!

This free, open-source utility “ignores the filesystem and goes after the underlying data“, which is exactly the aggressive type of approach these situations require. The software runs on practically every platform and can recover data from several filesystem formats: FAT, NTFS, EXT2/EXT3, and HFS+. Best of all, it doesn’t just work on hard drives. PhotoRec can be used with optical media, flash storage cards, and even portable media players like the iPod. Over 180 file types are supported for data recovery.

I’ve actually never lost any pics on my Canon XSi but it’s nice to know that this free utility worked for someone; especially since the new Canon T1i is arriving shortly. Oh wait… did I just hear a UPS truck pull up? Gotta run!

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