This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]

Dec 17, 2011 5:00 PM 12,710 0

• Google Currents Is a Gorgeous Magazine-Style Newsreader for iOS and Android (iOS/Android) Currents, Google's long-awaited and rumored competitor to apps like Flipboard and Zite, finally launched yesterday, offering Android and iOS users a clean, attractive layout and a fresh way to read blogs, RSS feeds, and other trending news and topics right on your smartphone or tablet for free.
• Better Explorer Brings a Windows 8-Style Explorer to Windows 7, Ribbon and All (Windows) If you like the look of Windows 8's new version of Windows Explorer, but don't want to use the developer preview, free app Better Explorer brings some of the perks to your Windows 7 desktop.
• Microsoft's Beloved Note-Taking Tool OneNote Now Available for iPad (iPad) You guys listed OneNote as one of your favorite note taking applications, and today Microsoft finally released an iPad-optimized version of the awesome tool, while adding a tabbed interface, quick note creation, and more.
• Unstuck Is Your iPad Toolkit for Curing Indecisiveness, Tiredness, Lack of Motivation, and Other Life Issues (iPad) We've all had our "stuck" moments, from the big ("What should I do with my life?") to the everyday ("I'm tired of the same old lunches"). Unstuck is a brilliant app that coaches you through challenges to a better life.
• PDroid Gives You Control Over the Personal Information Your Android Apps Can Access (Android, rooted) PDroid is a free Android utility that allows you to see and block access by apps on your Android phone to your personal data and individually identifying information. The tool shows you which apps have access to information like your phone number, your Device ID (IMEI/MEID/ESN), SIM serial number, and more, and lets you disable access without breaking the apps in question.
• Snapheal Performs Complex Photo Touch Ups and Object Removals in Two Clicks (Mac) You're probably well aware that you can use Photoshop to perform touch ups and remove objects, but that comes with the obvious disadvantage of a hefty price tag. Snapheal is a new Mac app that's designed to handle just about every kind of photo touch up you could want, but for far less money.
• FlashControl Prevents Web Sites Automatically Loading Flash Videos (Chrome) Some sites automatically play Flash videos which can be annoying, troublesome at work, and suck up bandwidth. The Chrome extension FlashControl stops Adobe Flash from loading unless you have authorized a particular site to bypass the restriction.
• Picasa Now Shares Photos on Google+, Adds More Photo Effects and Side-by-Side Picture Viewing (Web) Picasa 3.9 finally has great integration with Google+, allowing you to easily upload and share photos on the service and tag friends. Even if you don't use Google+, you might want to download the update for new editing features.
• MyUnity Fixes Annoyances in Ubuntu's Unity Interface (Ubuntu) If you're using the newest versions of Ubuntu, you probably have an annoyance or two with the Unity interface. MyUnity is a system tweaker based around changing Unity's behavior and appearance.
• iTunes Updates to Version 10.5.2, Fixes iTunes Match and Audio Glitches (Mac/Windows) Today Apple released the latest update to its popular audio and video behemoth to improve performance with their iTunes Match service and general audio glitches experienced by some users. The update is available for download right now, so just run Software Update on your Mac or Windows PC or head on over to Apple to download it from their web site directly.

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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/zFCG-C3lcJI/this-weeks-top-downloads

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Google Earth On 48 Screens Is the Best Way To Explore the Planet [Video]

Touring the world in person is expensive, time-consuming, and often dangerous. And is it really that much different to playing with Google Earth on this gigantic 48 screen display that covers 40 square meters with almost 100 million pixels? More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/wgOozTbzT-g/google-earth-on-48-screens-is-the-best-way-to-explore-the-planet

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Where Are All the Campaign Ads? (ContributorNetwork)

FIRST PERSON | It's December and I live in New Hampshire. Usually, this means cold weather and a lot of snow. But in the year before a presidential election, it always means an inordinate amount of campaign advertising running on TV, in newspapers and on the radio. This year, though, I have been able to watch TV uninterrupted by annoying campaign advertising. The only campaign ad I can remember seeing in the past couple of weeks is for Mitt Romney. Where are the ads for Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry? Where are Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman? Where is Ron Paul?

According to the Boston Globe, GOP candidates have only spent $923,385 on campaign ads this year compared to more than $3.9 million at this point in 2007. This adds up to a distinct paucity of advertising in New Hampshire, and it leaves me wondering why.

Generally, New Hampshire is the epicenter of retail politics during an election cycle. It's where candidates come to meet people, shake hands and kiss babies. It's where the people get out to see the candidates, to look them in the eyes and take their measure.

With the lack of media spending, one would think the candidates would be spending more time in the state glad-handing the people. In the case of Huntsman, that would be accurate. At this point, Huntsman nearly qualifies for state residency.

The Washington Post offers a campaign tracker that shows that Huntsman has visited the state 25 times in the last 30 days. Ten times more than Rick Santorum, 14 more times than Romney and 25 more times than Bachmann.

Huntsman's attention to New Hampshire has him running in a solid third place, but he's still 25 percentage points behind Romney.

This lack of advertising may indicate the GOP field is handing New Hampshire to Romney. With the commanding lead Romney has held in the state through the summer, the campaigns are spending their money in higher profile battleground states.

This apathy demonstrated for New Hampshire by the GOP candidates will lead to voter apathy during the primary, which will lead to voter apathy during the general election. With the current condition of the U.S. economy, and the partisan deadlocks happening in Congress, the GOP cannot afford to have an apathetic base if they expect to mount a successful challenge to President Barack Obama.

It's time for the serious GOP candidates to step up their advertising as we head into primary season, and to energize their supporters. If they start getting the message out now, once a candidate is chosen, it'll be easy to keep the energy level high moving into November 2012.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111217/pl_ac/10696973_where_are_all_the_campaign_ads

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Video: Gold, Silver Trade Melt Down

Analysis on the metals meltdown, with Rich Ilczyszyn, Lind-Waldock, and Fast Money's Steve Cortes.

Related Links:

Business & financial news headlines from msnbc.com

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/45671246/

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Obama: Troops leaving Iraq with heads held high (Reuters)

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama welcomed home some of the last U.S. troops from Iraq on Wednesday, marking a symbolic end to the nearly nine-year war that strained America's armed forces and damaged its standing worldwide.

Addressing soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne Division, Obama stopped short of declaring victory in Iraq but called the winding down of the conflict "an extraordinary achievement."

"It is harder to end a war than to begin one," he told about 3,000 soldiers gathered in an airplane hangar as they punctuated his speech with cheers and hollers.

Despite lingering questions about whether the United States should have invaded the Middle Eastern country, the last American troops "will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high," Obama said.

"Of course, Iraq is not a perfect place. But we are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people," he said. "We are ending a war not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home."

As of this week, there were about 5,500 U.S. troops left in Iraq, down from more than 170,000 at the height of the war that Obama's predecessor George W. Bush started in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Michelle Obama, speaking just before her husband, injected a hint of campaign rhetoric by crediting the president for winding down the war. "He's kept his promise to responsibly bring you home from Iraq," she told the Fort Bragg soldiers.

Leaving Iraq fulfills a pledge that helped Obama win the presidency in 2008 and allows the White House to focus more on Afghanistan as well as economic worries at home, where the high jobless rate will be a major concern for voters next year.

But critics have accused Obama of ignoring warnings from U.S. and Iraqi military commanders about the dangers of a full departure by the end of this year, the timetable that Bush's advisers had laid out and the current president stuck to.

Republican contenders for the 2012 presidential race and some policy experts have said Iraq's security forces are ill-equipped to keep order in the oil-producing country and have warned new insurgent violence or upheaval could embolden Iraq's neighbor and long-time foe Iran.

UNPOPULAR WAR

Senator John McCain, who ran against Obama for the presidency in 2008, said Obama should have convinced Baghdad to allow a small number of American troops to stay in Iraq beyond this year to help assist Iraqi security forces maintain the peace.

"It was a sad case of political expediency triumphing over military necessity, both in Baghdad and Washington," he said, calling Obama's decision to end talks about keeping some U.S. forces in Iraq represented "a failure of leadership."

Some 4,500 American troops and at least 60,000 Iraqis died in the Iraq war, which Obama has said would cost more than $1 trillion all told - a significant contributor to Washington's current fiscal strains.

The Democrat owes his White House tenure in part to his opposition to the Iraq war, which grew unpopular in the United States when military fighting morphed into sectarian violence and it became clear that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was not hiding weapons of mass destruction and supporting al Qaeda militants, as the Bush administration had claimed.

As an Illinois state legislator, Obama gave a stirring speech in 2002, warning that invading Iraq would plunge the United States into a "dumb war." He used his anti-war stance to distinguish himself in the Democratic presidential run-off from Hillary Clinton, who voted in Congress to go to war in Iraq.

In office, Obama moved quickly to scale back what his aides had dubbed "Bush's war" and to shift the military's focus to Afghanistan and its border with Pakistan, which he called the neglected battleground in the fight against al Qaeda.

Commentators now see that conflict as "Obama's war" and believe his presidency will be judged more on the outcomes of the Afghan campaign than on developments in Iraq, especially after the U.S. killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden earlier this year.

In Fort Bragg, Obama thanked soldiers and their families and said he was confident the U.S. departure from Iraq as well as the eventual transition from Afghanistan would leave the United States in a better position overall.

"Because of you, we are ending these wars in a way that will make America stronger and the world more secure," he told the troops.

Sgt. Major Millard View, who served in Iraq every year since the war began in 2003, and returned to the United States in April, said it had been "a tough road" for American forces who had to keep the peace and also help rebuild a broken country.

"The average soldier had to be a soldier on the one hand and city mayor on the other hand," he said.

(Writing by Laura MacInnis; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by John O'Callaghan and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111214/ts_nm/us_iraq_usa_obama

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Lawyer asks judge to endorse Blagojevich for rehab

FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2011 photo, Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich looks back at the crowd as he returns home with his wife Patti in Chicago after he was sentenced by Judge James Zagel to 14 years in prison for his convictions on 18 corruption counts, including trying to to auction off President Barack Obama's old Senate seat. Blagojevich's attorneys have asked a judge to put him in a drug rehab program when he enters prison next year, but won't say whether it's a legal maneuver or if he has an addiction. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2011 photo, Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich looks back at the crowd as he returns home with his wife Patti in Chicago after he was sentenced by Judge James Zagel to 14 years in prison for his convictions on 18 corruption counts, including trying to to auction off President Barack Obama's old Senate seat. Blagojevich's attorneys have asked a judge to put him in a drug rehab program when he enters prison next year, but won't say whether it's a legal maneuver or if he has an addiction. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

CHICAGO (AP) ? Rod Blagojevich's attorneys have asked to have him placed in a drug abuse program when he starts his 14-year prison sentence for corruption, though they aren't saying if the former Illinois governor has a problem or if it's a legal move.

Judge James Zagel agreed Tuesday to recommend Blagojevich for the program. Neither Zagel nor Blagojevich's attorneys detailed why he would be eligible. Blagojevich and his legal team have not publicly identified any problems with drug abuse during the three years since his arrest in December 2008.

One attorney for Blagojevich declined to comment about the request, and other attorneys did not return phone messages.

The request could be a move to cut time off his sentence. Prisoners in the federal residential drug abuse program generally live apart from other inmates, work fewer hours and are eligible for up to a year in reduced prison time.

Federal prison officials get the final say on whether an inmate can enter the program.

Gal Pissetzky, a veteran defense attorney who has closely followed the Blagojevich case, said he's had many clients ask to join the drug rehab or other programs.

"They always try to get some type of a program," he said.

Blagojevich faces 14 years in prison after being convicted of 18 corruption related counts, including charges that he tried to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. He was also convicted of trying to shake down hospital and racetrack executives and of lying to the FBI.

Under federal prison guidelines, Blagojevich would normally have to serve 85 percent of his sentence ? almost 12 years ? before he could be considered for early release.

Before any inmate can enter the program, prison officials look for evidence that the inmate has problems with substance abuse, Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke said. Typically, evidence of a problem before a person's arrest ? from medical records to a statement from a doctor about treatment ? carries more weight than a problem reported afterward, he said.

A sentence reduction is intended as an incentive to motivate inmates to complete the program and get better, Burke said.

"We're looking for anybody trying to game the system and trying to get that year off," he said.

Judges usually use the results of a pre-sentence investigation ? which typically includes details about any drug or alcohol use ? to make a recommendation, though federal prison officials will make their own findings before a decision, Pissetzky said. Pre-sentence investigations remain under seal and are unavailable to the public.

Inmates in the drug abuse program undergo treatment classes and other requirements, Burke said.

At the request of Blagojevich's attorneys, Zagel also agreed Tuesday to recommend Blagojevich for the low-security Englewood prison in Littleton, Colo., near Denver. About 60 inmates out of about 800 are in the residential drug abuse program, Englewood spokesman John Sell said.

Blagojevich is scheduled to report to prison March 15. Zagel on Tuesday gave Blagojevich an extra month before his sentence starts so he could help his family move into a new home.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-14-US-Blagojevich-Prison/id-546bd59ba7674efa802385f5a761ec18

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Powerball winners swear to be trust's only members (Providence Journal)

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