The Explore button will give you ideas for how to use the app with Featured, Popular, and local members.

HipGeo Travel Blog and Trip Journal (Free) lets you tell the story of your vacation with images, videos, text, tags, and more all tied to your geolocation. You start by signing up through Facebook or Twitter, then you can choose people to share your travels with. If you just want to see the app in action before you take your trip (and see best practices from other users) you can use an explore button to check out blogs of popular or featured users, or look at posts from near your location.

Once signed up you'll have your own personal blog on HipGeo where all your posts will live. When you're ready to start, you can either touch the camera button to take a photo or video, or choose the Post option to write a text blog. After hitting post, your photo, video, or text blog will show up with a time stamp and your location automatically along with whatever message you want to send to your followers. Even if you take several photos at one location, the app automatically groups them together. This running blog then becomes the story of your vacation. It also has an always-on functionality that tracks where you've been until you're ready to share it. ... [Read more]

A look at Microsoft's new Windows Phone Dev Center.

Microsoft has completely overhauled its Windows Phone Dev Center and added some extra ways for developers to get paid.

The company today announced the changes in a blog post, saying that the site, which allows developers to do everything from submit applications to download software development kits, was completely rebuilt "from the ground up." The design itself comes with a healthy amount of white space and a streamlined, basic feel. According to Microsoft, the redesign aims "at providing faster access to common tasks."

For developers, however, the key additions come by way of availability and payments. According to Microsoft, it will soon allow developers to register apps "in four times as many countries and regions" from the Dev Center. In addition, Microsoft has added more payment methods, including PayPal.

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