Hi, I'm Catherine Hwang, a partner manager at CNET Downloads, where I manage software publisher relationships for Upload.com. Last month, we teamed up with Lavasoft to bring you an exclusive offer on one of the most popular security suites on CNET Downloads. This month, we partnered with Roxio, Novastor and ChicaLogic to bring you exclusive deals your mom might find useful.

Today only, you can help your mom easily create and share life's favorite events through Roxio PhotoShow for just $19.99 (originally $39.99). With those precious memories created with Roxio PhotoShow, you can help back up her photos and videos with a click of a mouse, using NovaBackup Professional for just $19.95 (originally $49.95). Lastly, created and designed specifically for busy women in mind, ChicaPC-fix can maximize speed and performance of her PC in matter of minutes. Get ChicaPC-fix for your mom today for just $9.95 (originally $29.95).

These three offers are good for Tuesday only and ends at 11:59 EDT Tuesday. Get them before it's too late!

It's been about a month since Twitter has begun contributing its official apps to the BlackBerry marketplace, rather than sitting back and letting third-party developers take the reins. We checked out Twitter's new, free, official in-house Android app over the weekend and for the most part, we've been liking what we see.

While there's no shortage of third-party Twitter apps in the Android Market, Twitter's has an edge that the others don't--integrating contacts with the Android address book. That means you'll be able to view your buddy's Twitter photo and most recent update from the address book. The entry also serves as a shortcut for quickly jumping to the Twitter profile in question within the native Twitter app. (Too bad you can't tweet someone directly from here.)

The rest of the app also holds its own against the slew of now-competing Twitter-helpers. Twitter can notify you of incoming tweets in various ways, and offers a choice of photo and URL-uploading service. Its two home screen widgets broadcast recent tweets; the larger one includes a text field for your status updates.

Twitter's attractive splash screen lines up quick links to see your friends' Twitterstream, mentions, direct messages, lists, retweet activity, and personal profile. We appreciate being able to upload a new photo from the smartphone, turning on geolocation, and adding @usernames from a drop-down list.

However, we vastly prefer the @username autocomplete mechanism found in apps like TweetCaster and Touiteur. We think Twitter ought to include skinning options for those who prefer a less cheery style of Twitter-blue icon eye-candy, but that's minor compared to our most serious complaint--support for just one user account at a time. When the app can handle multiple accounts, we might consider switching.

You can try Twitter for free from the Android Market on Android phones running operating system 2.1 and above, which limits the number of people who can currently use the app. Luckily, since co-collaborator Google plans to open the code for this build as part of the Twitter API, we'll look forward to seeing how other developers fold in access to Android's address book on top of what they've already got.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

With Apple not leaking a whisper of evidence as to whether it plans to bring any sort of music subscription service to iTunes, iPhone and iPod Touch owners have had to rely on third-party apps to fulfill their dreams of unlimited, on-demand tunes. However, there has been one big caveat: the available services relied solely on streaming, which means mobile Touch users and airborne (or underground) iPhone users were out of luck. Until now.

Rhapsody's iPhone and iPod Touch app is fresh out of beta, and version 2.0 of the software comes with at least one key advantage over the competitors: It's the first major music service to cache music on the device for offline playback. The capability is limited in that it only lets you save playlists, not individual songs, albums, or artists. However, it's a big step forward for those who prefer an all-you-can-eat approach to an a la carte model, which has become even less financially appealing with many popular songs selling for $1.29 apiece.

Of course, playlist caching is only part of the story for Rhapsody 2.0. Another compelling point is the services updated pricing scheme that likely will be more appealing to a wider range of mobile users. You can select between two subscription types: Rhapsody Premier, which costs $10 per month and can be used with one mobile device; or Rhapsody Premier Plus, which adds two additional devices for an extra $5 per month--a great option for housemates or families with multiple devices. Better yet, not all of them need to be the same, so you can feasibly have an iPhone, a Nexus One, and a BlackBerry Curve all under one plan. (Nonwireless players such as the Sansa Clip+ and Sony Walkman are also included in the new plans, though you must use the desktop client for music transferring.)

I put the updated Rhapsody app to the test on my iPod Touch. Those who've used the beta and liked the interface will be happy to know that it hasn't really changed. If your device is connected via Wi-Fi or 3G, there are five main menu options. You can view your queue and save it as a playlist, if you so desire. There's also My Library, where your Rhapsody music collection is sorted into the usual suspects (artist, album, playlist, and so on). The playlist page provides download arrows next to each selection that lets you cache whichever ones you want. You can also browse editor-maintained content, as well as search for specific music. It's all pretty standard and very easy to navigate, and the plentiful album art makes the interface visually-pleasing as well.

What's interesting is that Rhapsody provides a different, more limited interface for offline use and distinguishes the two even further with color (online is blue and offline is orange). In this mode, you are limited to viewing and navigating your queue and accessing saved playlists. I did experience a couple of glitches in this mode, including an initial error message that indicated offline playback was not actually available (apparently a leftover bug that Rhapsody is working on), a song with playback glitches, and a playlist that stopped playback at the end of each track. Still, despite these minor annoyances, which I am confident Rhapsody will address, it's definitely cool to have subscription music on the iPod Touch while on-the-go.

Now, this isn't quite the same as what Slacker has been promising since CES earlier this year, as Rhapsody is more of a "build your own" destination for music, but it does clearly indicate that Apple has approved device caching--a big step in the right direction. The Rhapsody 2.0 app is free and available now, and if you don't already subscribe to the service, you can try it out for 14 days at no cost.

Originally posted at MP3 Insider

Microsoft's browser market share continued to fall in April, with Internet Explorer now in use for fewer than three in five Web connections.

IE's share of the market in April was 59.95, down from 60.65 percent in March, according to Net Applications. Google's Chrome grabbed the lion's share of that, increasing to 6.73 percent from 6.13 percent, while Firefox also gained nearly a tenth of a percentage point, to finish April with 24.59 percent.

The decline for IE at the expense of Google and Mozilla is the continuation of several years of market share losses for Microsoft. In May 2008, Microsoft had 75.94 percent of the market, while Firefox had 18.3 percent and Google's Chrome wasn't even out yet.

Even a year ago, Microsoft's market share was nearly 8 percentage points higher. Since then, Google, Mozilla, and Apple have all further eroded Internet Explorer's share of the market.

For some time now, Microsoft has said it hopes to better compete in the browser market. At the Mix 2010 event in March, Microsoft released a technical preview for Internet Explorer 9, which will user a Windows PC's graphics horsespower to aid graphics and text rendering. In recent days, though, much of the attention on IE9 has been around Microsoft's announcement that the browser's built-in HTML 5 video support will be limited to the H.264 codec.

Microsoft IE general manager Dean Hachamovitch responded to criticism of that decision in a blog post on Monday, saying that H.264 offers a "more certain" path than other formats.

"Relative to alternatives, H.264 maintains strong hardware support in PCs and mobile devices as well as a breadth of implementation in consumer electronics devices around the world, excellent video quality, scale of existing usage, availability of tools and content authoring systems, and overall industry momentum--each an important factor that contributes to our point of view," he said. "H.264 also provides the best certainty and clarity with respect to legal rights from the many companies that have patents in this area."

Originally posted at Beyond Binary

SAN FRANCISCO--The next update of Windows Live is starting to take shape.

CEO Steve Ballmer last week previewed the new version of Messenger. Microsoft isn't quite ready to detail everything its planning for the next Hotmail, but general manager Brian Hall offered a pretty good indication of where the company is placing its bets.

"This release, while we are not going into any details right now, it is the one that places Hotmail back on top, especially for busy people who just want an efficient e-mail," Hall said over lunch on Monday. Hall was here to check out the Web 2.0 event.

For those wanting the specifics, Windows Live enthusiast blog LiveSide.net has a story about what would appear to be the key features of the new release, including the addition of conversation view, Exchange ActiveSync for a push connection to mobile devices, and much deeper ties to social networks.

Hall declined to comment specifically on the report, but talked about his views generally on each of these areas.

One of the key ideas, Hall said, is to recognize how much has changed in the 15 years that people have had free Web mail services.

"It's not just all attachments any more," he said. "Now, I may send an attachment or a set of attachments, or I might send a Flickr link or I might send a YouTube link. How do you make it so people can stay within your center of activity, in e-mail."

According to the LiveSide report, users will be able to edit Office documents and view a Flickr slideshow or a YouTube video, all from within the new Hotmail.

As for updates from social networks, Hall noted that they now account for 5 percent of mail volume. He noted that the goal of an e-mail service should be to let users take action without having to leave their in-box. As for the specifics, he wouldn't go into detail.

"You'll see," Hall said.

Hall also talked about conversation view, which has been one of the key selling points for Gmail since the service debuted.

"It's a good option." However, he noted that with the beta of Office 2010, Microsoft had its new conversation view feature on by default in the beta, but opted to make the more standard view the default for Outlook 2010, requiring those who want conversation view to turn on the feature. "Trying to take a one-size-fits-all approach for everyone generally doesn't work for anyone," he said.

Microsoft, in particular, has found it sometimes has to move slow with Hotmail. When it tried its first radical revamp of the software back in 2006, users found the changes too jarring and Microsoft was forced to initially add a "classic view" and ultimately to make that the default option.

The software maker is expected to detail the new Hotmail in the coming weeks as well as provide a clearer time frame for its release. Microsoft probably won't make a test version of Hotmail available, Hall said, though it will take six weeks for all users to get the product, once it is released.

Hall also made some bold pronouncements on the competition, taking shots at both Google and Yahoo.

"It's a two-horse race at this point in e-mail," discounting Yahoo, even though it is still the leader in the U.S. market. Gmail, he said, continues to outpace Hotmail's growth, increasing 20 percent last year. However, he said that Microsoft still grew 8 percent, adding more than 50 million in-boxes to remain the global leader. Yahoo Mail, he said, was relatively flat.

Hall also took a shot at Google's methods of building Gmail.

"Our approach is different," he said. "We don't throw things in a lab and see if anyone wants to use it. We plan a lot more. We release in an integrated fashion and don't really subject our customers to ideas that haven't been well thought through."

Originally posted at Beyond Binary

When people ask me how I like my new iPad and what I'm using it for, I answer as follows: "I like it, and I'm using it mostly for reading."

Not books--I still rely mostly on my iPhone for that--but news. As a news reader (and surrogate newspaper), the iPad rocks.

And for actually doing the reading, one of my favorite iPad apps so far is The Early Edition. (A big, big shout-out to reader Hanoveur, who recommended it when I asked which iPad apps I should install first.)

In a nutshell, The Early Edition aggregates your favorites news sources and presents them in an attractive, familiar-looking newspaper format. It's what happens when high-tech meets old-school.

The app comes with about a dozen news feeds already configured. The default All Feeds view generates your "newspaper" from all these sources, though you can tap any one of them to view just that source. 

As with actual newspaper apps, tapping any story brings it to the fore. However, if the story includes a "read more" page break, you'll get only the first portion. You can tap through to read the entire article, but that takes you to an embedded browser view of the actual Web page, thus killing the newspaper "feel" of the experience.

That's a minor gripe. A bigger one is with The Early Edition's method for adding feeds: You have to enter each RSS link manually. There's no search option, and no way to import feeds from another reader. Plus, the app isn't smart enough to ferret out a site's feed if you enter just its URL (like, say, www.iphoneatlas.com).

Consequently, adding feeds is a major pain. At best, you have to look them up in Safari, then copy and paste them into The Early Edition. But if you're dealing with a site that doesn't have a copyable RSS feed, you'll have to hit your PC, find the proper link, then type it in manually. Bleh.

Fortunately, all that's soon to change. According to developer Glasshouse Apps, The Early Edition 1.1 will let you import from both Google Reader and OPML sources. Also, the app will "discover" the proper feed when you enter a site's URL. Another upcoming feature: the option of organizing your feeds into groups.

It'll be 1-2 weeks before this update gets submitted, Glasshouse says, so it could be upwards of a month before it's actually available. My advice: don't wait. The Early Edition offers the single best RSS-reading experience on the iPad to date. It's well worth the $4.99 price of admission.

Originally posted at iPad Atlas

Article updated 5/3/2010 at 1:28 pm with new details about operating system compatibility.

About a year and a half after releasing a mobile version of its personal-finance service for the iPhone, Mint.com is bringing its free credit-card and budget tracker to Android phones.

As with the iPhone app, passcode-protected Mint.com on Android has you monitoring credit card, bank, and investment accounts; your budget; and your cash ebb and flow. The app presents your money matters in summary form, with the ability to drill down to the item level of a purchase. Follow the trail to the end to edit an item's transaction details or jot down notes or tags. Apart from those modest editing allowances, Mint is largely read-only. You'll need to set up and manage budgets and alerts online.

Mint--which was swallowed up seven months ago by Quicken- and TurboTax-maker Intuit-- has kept both the iPhone and Android apps simple with just a few customizations. The settings menu contains an option to add a 4-digit passcode. Another setting enables a widget or Android Live Folder that displays your total assets and expenditures, assuming you're the type who doesn't mind slapping details of your personal haul onto the prime viewing location of your home screen.

While Mint's Android app hands you the tools to quickly eyeball your fortunes, it also bypasses some of the Web site's best features--such as suggestions on ways to save dough and those colorful charts and graphs that diagram your spending habits. These are the same missing features we've been pining over since Mint released its iPhone app in 2008. Frankly, we were hoping for more.

You can still access Mint's full range of tools and features at the mobile-optimized Web site. But starting Monday, those who prefer to snap open an app rather than wait for a site to load can download Mint from the Android Market app on their phones. Mint for Android runs on phones running version 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, and 2.1 of the Android operating system. You will need to register for an account to use Mint.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Google has acquired Bump Technologies, the maker of a 3D desktop called BumpTop, Bump announced Sunday.

"Today, we have a big announcement to make: we're excited to announce that we've been acquired by Google!," a note posted to the company's Web site said. "This means that BumpTop (for both Windows and Mac) will no longer be available for sale. Additionally, no updates to the products are planned."

Financial details were not disclosed, but the company said it would keep its software available for download for one week. A Google representative confirmed the acquisition but declined to discuss specifics of the deal.

BumpTop debuted in April 2009, three years after a video demo of the freeware replacement desktop captivated YouTube viewers. The software, which runs on top of Windows and Mac OS X, allows files to be thrown into loose piles, tidied into neat stacks, or fanned out like a deck of cards.

Updated at 5:55 p.m. PDT to include Google confirmation.

Originally posted at News - Digital Media