Whilst in the car you should keep you phone secure, and I don’t mean in your hand. In the UK it is illegal to drive whilst using a mobile phone or any device to communicate with unless it is hands-free.  If you are caught using your phone whilst driving there’s a £60 fine and 3 Penalty Points added to your licence! Keeping the phone in a secure place like held on the dash and using a hands-free kit is legal as long as it doesn’t affect your driving take a look HERE for more information on the law in the UK.

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Internet Radio Box – (Requires Data Connection)

To kick this weeks Top 5 Apps I begin with a 59p App. Internet Radio Box does exactly what it’s called, and it does it well! With hundreds if not thousands of songs and podcasts on my iPhone, you think I’d have all the entertainment I could possibly want and need in my pocket. However there was always something missing, Radio! I really enjoy listening to BBC Radio 1. It keeps me up to date with the latest tunes, news and for Chris Moyles Listeners a great laugh too. The problem is I can only listen to the radio if I’m either in the Car or stream it when I get home. Well lets bring on Internet Radio Box, Radio Box for short. This fantastic and very cheap app allows you to listen to radio from pretty much anyone broadcasting over the Web. In the UK there are over 40 stations. Most stations available tend to be the main stream national stations not local but personally I never listen to local radio, apart from when I was on it many years ago but that’s another story. Radio Box streams the music at 128kbps on Wifi and 64kbps on 3G/EDGE you can increase this but do be wary of data usage. 02 in the UK say ‘Unlimited’ usage but there is a hidden fair usage policy so if you use too much you could get a bill. But don’t worry radio box shows you exactly how much data usage you have used. Overall definitely worth 59p, if you love radio you will love this!

Harbour Master App - (Requires Sign Up)

This next app is for gamers who like strategy and for anyone currently playing Flight Control. Harbour Master is another great game on the App Store. At only 59p you will be having hours, (it’s possible I got addicted) of fun playing. If you have ever played Flight Control then it’s the same sort of idea but this time docking boats in a harbour the only difference is you have to unload the boats and set them off again. If you haven’t had a go of Flight Control, firstly are you mad, basically the boats large, small, fast, slow enter the harbour and you have to dock them in the right bay, wait for them to unload then set them off again. Sounds easy I hear you say. Try it with few ports and lots of boats its hard to time it right and be sure not to crash the boats or else games over! Overall this game is one of those great coffee break apps. A nice fun and challenging app to keep you busy for a while.

Twitterrific App – (Requires Data Access and a Twitter Account)

A few weeks ago I recommended the TwitterFon App. It’s a great app for anyone who wants Twitter Access and updates wherever they go. Well this week I decided to try out Twitterrific. Now this app is pretty much the same, from what I can see of TwitterFon and like TwitterFon also has a premium version available for those who just cant simply stand advertising. The app is really simple to use has great colour schemes and does exactly what I want it too as did TwitterFon so is there anything that sets the two apart? Well not much apart from Twitteriffic supports location and allows you to see who’s twittering or should that be tweeting, anyway it shows you who’s near you and their messages which is kinda nice. The layout of the two is a little different but not much apart from Twitterrific has a little more of a glossy, sleek feel to it. Personally I feel its very much personal preference so try both Twitterriffic and TwitterFon and see which you prefer. Ill be sticking with Twitterriffic for a little bit more at least to get a bit more of a feel for it.

Memory Info App

Most crashes on the iPhone 3G and First Gen iPhone the 2G I suppose you call it, was because there was a lack of RAM. If your not sure what RAM is simply put, it’s memory that applications that are running can use to dump information so they can run and run quickly. RAM stands for Random Access Memory and applications dump data they need to access quickly in order to give you the best experience. Anyway the Original iPhone and the iPhone 3G has 128MB of RAM. The 3GS has double, so 256MB and therefore there are, or in theory far less crashes on the iPhone 3GS than previous models. If you have a look at my article HERE comparing the 3GS and 3G you can see memory tests near the bottom. Anyway enough waffle whats memory info? Well it’s what Memory Info can do that’s interesting. When you close an app the RAM isn’t always cleared and so your phone slows down and can crash. If you load Memory Info, click Free Memory, it will free up your ram and make your phone fast again. Now if you have a 3GS and think I’m ok I don’t need it then your so wrong. Memory info shows what free ram you have and after a few apps had been used and closed on my 3GS I only had around 30MB free one click of Free Memory in Memory Info and I got 149MB back! Overall if your someone who uses lots of apps or intensive apps like games get this app. For 59p it will save you having to reboot your iPhone every time it slows up!

Rope ‘n’ Fly App

My Final App of this Week is another game! Rope ‘n’ Fly is a very simple yet addictive game where you are a man swinging on ropes that come from your hands across buildings. No, not Spiderman, don’t know where you could of got that idea from, it’s just a simple man who just so happens to have the amazing powers exactly like Spiderman. Anyway it’s not a game you get for amazing graphics or amazing sound, far from it, it’s just simple and fun. It’s another Coffee break game that you might just end up playing for longer than you thought and possibly get in trouble! Plus what I like about this game is there is a Lite Version available. You don’t get to do much in the lite version but at least you can see what the game is like without spending a penny, which is great! Definitely give this a try!

So that’s another week of fantastic apps for you to try. If you have any apps you want me to check out Tweet me, add a comment, e-mail me just get in touch!

Ok so i’m currently running Windows 7 RC and last night I was downloading a game demo but really wanted to go sleep. The game had another 30 mins until the download ended and so I though oh well the computer sleeps after 60 mins of none usage so I will just leave it. When I woke up this morning I noticed, well heard my Computer Fans whirring around so i turned on the monitor expecting to see some sort of error message but there wasn’t. All that was showing was the login screen. So I sat down and had a think why this could be and then thought of a way to solve the problem. Here’s what I did:

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The Android team have been busy and have released a LiveCD / LiveUSB version of  Android for x86 platforms. The LiveAndroid allows you to burn a copy to a CD or stick it on a USB and boot right from it allowing the testing of the OS without having to make any changes to your system or create a partition.

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PaperToss App The Paper Toss App is a great little game that can give you several minutes, yes minutes I doubt hours, of fun and is a great tea break game just to pass some time. The game is set in a office and the idea of the is to try and toss the paper into the bin by drawing its route on screen however there is a one obstacle, a Fan! No I don’t mean a fan as in a celebrity fan, I mean an Office fan. It will blow the paper in a certain direction and you need to determine how to through the paper in order to overcome the wind from the fan. Overall the game is great for those breaks but can get tiresome over time but it’s Free so what are you waiting for?

Waterslide Extreme App

My Next Top 5 App is another Game. This one is called WaterSlide Extreme and is a great little game that can get quite addictive. Your mission is to slide down the waterslide, not you a character but you have to direct the character by tilting the iPhone left or right and forwards and back for speed. When sliding down there are green stars to hit to get points but watch out there’s also a crab and an angry duck, don’t ask, but they will cause you to loose a life so be careful also don’t tip the iPhone too far or you will fall off the slide. Check this app out in the App Store for free!

WoW Mobile Armory App – (Requires Data Access and a Battle.Net or WoW Account)

So it looks like the biggest MMO in the World has come to the iPhone… Well not quite. If you have ever played World of Warcraft you have probably come across the armory. What it allowed you to do was see yours and everyones characters and see what gear they had, what talent spec they had, there rep, arena info and much more. If you haven’t a clue what I’m on about you probably haven’t played so skip this app. What the Armory App does is lets you see all this information without having to go on the web. Whats also nice is when you log into your account it shows you all your characters without having to find them yourself. If your a WoW player it’s a must, if your not a player you have a life and can skip this app. (I’m not having a dig I used to play too!)

iPint App So whats this iPint app? Well this is one of those apps you must get if you want to show your brilliant iPhone off to your mates or down the pub. Simply touch the screen and your iPhone fills with what looks like realistic beer. Simply put the iPhone to your mouth, tilt and the drink appears to be emptying into your mouth. Ok so it doesn’t look like it’s a glass. You can tell its a phone but when your mate wants a pint tell him to touch the screen and drink that. Imagine the taste and it will save you lots of money! Overall iPint is a great funny app that is a great sneaky way of showing everyone your doing well, you have an iPhone, but without actually having to point it out!

UK TV Guide App – (Requires Data Access) My Final App of the Week is aimed at UK users like myself. Sorry everyone else but I had to mention it in the Top 5. This App is brilliant! Simply put its a EPG (electronic programme guide) on your iPhone. When you load the app it instantly shows you whats on now and next for all the Freeview and many if not all the Sky Channels too! You can also click on a channel and see whats on every day for the next 7 Days. Not only that but for BBC channels it provides links to the iPlayer (BBC on demand service) and opens the page up in Safari instantly.  If you like your TV and are in the UK this is another must!