Draw the curtains and turn out the lights for some dark and spooky tales from Edgar Allan Poe, shown here on the iPad version of iPoe for iOS.

Forget Stephen King; if you like the macabre, you gotta go Poe.

iPoe for iOS brings to creepy, illustrated life four of Edgar Allan Poe's works.

As with Alice for iPad and other famous literary works given the app treatment, iPoe transforms the author's text into lavishly illustrated pages enhanced with music, animation, and interactive touches.

The app comes with four tales: "Annabel Lee," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Oval Portrait," and "The Tell-Tale Heart." You also get a brief biography of the author.

Needless to say, there are some key works missing here, including "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." But the most egregious omission is "The Raven," without a doubt Poe's most famous poem. A collection without this beloved title? Nevermore!

Perhaps developer Creatividad will add one or more of these in a future update. In the meantime... [Read more]

One of the biggest gripes about megapopular photo social-networking service Instagram is that you can't use it on desktops. Well, with Instagrille, you can get pretty close. Instagrille is an Instagram viewer for Windows, and it's available through Pokki's desktop apps platform. Sure, there are several third-party, Web-based Instagram viewers out there, but Instagrille is unique because it's an actual downloadable desktop app.

For those who don't know, Pokki is an app store for your Windows computer. You can download and install apps in one click (just as you would on your phone), and it offers a desktop Facebook app, Gmail app, and over a hundred others that feel very much like mobile apps. Everything in Pokki is free (for now), but of a few of the apps accept in-app payments for extra services.

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Is Apple taking aim at sites that sell access to its iOS 6 beta to non-developers?

Apple-tracking blog MacStories reported yesterday that a host of Web sites known for selling access to Apple's iOS beta are no longer online. After trying to contact many of the site's owners, the publication's e-mails bounced back. Finally, the publication was able to connect with one site owner who said that his hosting provider took his site down after Apple filed a copyright-infringement claim.

That followed a claim made by David, CEO of Web hosting provider Fused who goes by his first name, that "Apple has been fairly heavy-handed with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requests to the ones we host."

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Uniblue, maker of popular PC utilities SpeedUpMyPC, DriverScanner, and MaxiDisk, has just released the newest version of its all-around performance solution PowerSuite.

Along with a minor name change from PowerSuite to Uniblue Powersuite, this 2013 version shows off a completely revamped interface that Uniblue says is designed for all levels of users, ranging from novices to experts. Now, all of the key functions are divided up among three panels: Speed tools, System optimization, and Disk optimization. In addition, upon startup, you can quickly run a full scan of your system by clicking the large, scan button up top.

With Uniblue Powersuite 2013, users can now try out the program with a Lite version. This free download offers a set of speed tools that includes a CPU Manager, Software Launch Booster, Start Menu Software Accelerator, and Proactive Thumbnail Generator, all of which are designed to restore a little pep in your PC's step. It's easy to toggle these speed tools individually, or activate them all with a single click. But of course, Speed tools constitute only about a third of the product's full capabilities. If you want to access the System optimization and Disk optimization tools, then you'll have to pony up 59.95 and upgrade to the Pro version.

Uniblue Powersuite 2013 is available now for free downlo... [Read more]