Do you often have to communicate with people who can’t speak your language? If you do then Translator+ makes for a great addition to your BlackBerry.

Translator+ is an online multi-translation tool that allows you to translate words and phrases between 12 different languages. By performing translations via a server rather than a local database, the program is very powerful, allowing the conversion of even the most unusual words and turns of phrase.

The user interface in Translator+ is clean and easy to navigate, if a little drab. You simply need to select the languages you wish to translate between from the drop-down list, then type the text you wish to translate and hit the ‘Translate’ button. The program’s settings allow you to tick the languages you want to appear in the Direction drop-down menu, making the whole process much quicker.

Another neat thing about Translator+ is the fact that it integrates with your email service, helping you to quickly compose messages in a foreign language.

All in all, Translator+ represents a fast and reliable way to translate text on the go.

{t}Download{/t} Translator+ 1.3.7 in Softonic

For the past few weeks I’ve been playing with the alpha version of Limewire 5, and I’m really impressed. Firstly, it’s been completely redesigned, and now looks ultra modern, sleek and attractive. While you still have the “Upgrade to Pro” pop-up every time you start, it looks and feels much friendlier.

All the features we’re used to are present and correct – there’s nothing that current users will find difficult to do in version 5 – and there’s something new too. If you have friends with Limewire and Gmail, Jabber or LiveJournal accounts, you can share file directly with them without sharing them publicly. Connecting Limewire to Gmail friend lists is genius – you don’t have to even think about IP addresses or any complicated connecting, just pick the files you want to share and that’s it.

Unlike older file sharing communities, you can’t search and add friends from the Limewire network, just use ones from you own friend lists. This is quite a change, and means two things – firstly, that you can have a really neat sharing community of your actual friends, and secondly that you can be sure no one is spying on what you’re sharing. I have read that Limewire is considering adding Facebook contacts to the app in a future release. Considering how many people are connected with each other through Facebook, utilizing that for easy file-sharing has wonderful potential. Not only can I get that warm community feeling when sharing music again, but sharing anything, from pictures to documents, is finally as easy as you want it to be.

I searched and found out that I wasn’t alone either. It seems that VLC Player has a tendency to be unstable on Mac for sometimes rather mysterious reasons. One problem concerns failure to play video due to errors in the preferences file as outlined by The Racing Geek. The solution:

1) Quit the application if it is running
2) Delete the VLC folder in /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences
3) Delete org.videolan.vlc.plist in /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences
4) Delete org.videolan.vlc.plist in /DRIVENAME/Library/Preferences

However, the main problem I’ve been experiencing is adding music. Since I wanted something simpler than iTunes, I decided to try using VLC as my default media player (big mistake) but adding huge amounts of music to it, simply causes it to hang and stop responding. Oh, how I miss simple apps like Winamp sometimes.

The solution I’ve found is simply to add music in smaller chunks. Album by album seems to work better although this is obviously painfully slow and inconvenient. Users on the Videolan forum are at a loss to explain why this happens – it seems that for all its simplicity, VLC cannot handle a basic operation like adding a large directory of music to it. The most likely explanation is that it can’t handle either metadata or album art, although if this is the case there should be a simple way to deactivate reading these.

So come on Videolan, when are you going to fix this simple bug that will enable Mac users to enjoy VLC Player as a lightweight alternative to iTunes?

Most of us have experienced – or at least witnessed – the effects that alcohol can have on a person’s basic ability to stand upright. Done Drinking puts you in the shoes of a guy who has had one two many pints and challenges you to get him home.

Done Drinking makes use of the iPhone’s accelerometer so you can control your drunken bum, Tipsy, simply by tilting the screen from one side to the other. It’s not as easy as it sounds as the bubbles have got to his head and made it virtually impossible for Tipsy to walk in a straight line, so you’ll need to be very precise in your movements. The object is to travel as far as possible without Tipsy falling over. You get three tries and your total distance is recorded in the high scores table.

Done Drinking is good fun to play with funny cartoon graphics and a humorous musical score. However, for me the game is just too repetitive and there aren’t enough elements in it to make it anything other than a brief diversion. There aren’t any levels as such and no obstacles, power-ups or other characters so the action quickly becomes a bit stale.

There are a few options in Done Drinking, such as volume, controls and the units of distance display – but I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more customization here.

Done Drinking is fun for a while, but the amusement soon gives way to fatigue and nausea – much like with booze itself.

{t}Download{/t} Done Drinking 1.0 in Softonic

Key Features:

• Support MOV, MPEG, VCD, DVD, WMV, ASF, RM, RMVB, AVI, DIVX, PPC, iPod, Flash SWF, Flash FLV, Gif Animation, PSP, 3GP, Xbox, PMP video converter
• Support converting video from AVI, Divx, ASF, WMV, WMA, MPEG, MOV, QT, RM, RMVB, VCD, DVD file to Apple iPod, Sony PSP, Cell Phone 3GP, Microsoft Zune Player, Microsoft Xbox, Pocket PC, Portable Media Player ect. Mobile video
• Support converting video from AVI, Divx, ASF, WMV, WMA, MPEG, MOV, QT, RM, RMVB, VCD, DVD file to AVI, Divx, Xvid, MPEG, MOV, WMV, RM, RMVB etc. PC Video
• Support converting video from AVI, Divx, ASF, WMV, WMA, MPEG, MOV, QT, RM, RMVB, VCD, DVD file to Flash SWF, Youtube FLV, Flash FLV
• VCD Ripper – Support ripper VCD movies from dat to any pop video formats
• DVD Ripper – Support ripper unprotected DVD movies from vob to any pop video formats
• Support converting video from AVI, Divx, ASF, WMV, WMA, MPEG, MOV, QT, RM, RMVB, VCD, DVD file to MP3, WMA, WAV, MP2 Audio
• Support converting video from AVI, Divx, ASF, WMV, WMA, MPEG, MOV, QT, RM, RMVB, VCD, DVD file to Gif Animation and GIF, BMP, EPS, JPG, PCX, PSD, PDF, TIFF, WMF, EMF, PNG, J2K IMAGE
• Support converting video from AVI, Divx, ASF, WMV, WMA, MPEG, MOV, QT, RM, RMVB, VCD, DVD file to Apple TV, iPhone

Most under-hyped apps
In this list published by Lifehacker, Gina Trapani includes a series of apps that she considers deserved more attention during the last twelve months. Songbird, Picasa 3, VLC Media Player and Opera are among them.

Best of Last.fm
The online music service has published a list with the most popular artists, albums and tracks of 2008, based entirely on users’ scrobblings. Coldplay has the most scrobbled song and album, while MGMT top the Artist ranking.

Top searches in Google Zeitgeist, a list of the most searched-for terms during 2008. The list varies from one country to another, but the global ranking is topped by Sarah Palin. Kudos to her!

Most downloaded iTunes apps
The App Store features a list where you can see the top downloaded apps of 2008. The list is organized in several categories: games, entertainment, utilities, social networking and music, all in free or paid versions.

Most beautiful icon sets
The design blog Noupe has gathered an impressive collection with the 50 most beautiful icon sets created during this year. You’ll find icons for blogs, for the iPhone, for social networks… and many of them for free.

Best photos of 2008
The top photos of 2008 in Flickr is being created by users themselves. Flickr has asked all Flickr users to choose the best photo they’ve taken this year and add it to the special group “Your best shot of 2008“. Really worth a look!

Top 10 Videogames
Published by the Time magazine, this list includes the top videogames of 2008, though I must say I don’t agree with most of it – except for GTA IV’s first place, that is. The wooden spoon award is for Spore.

Most Pirated PC Games
Funnily enough, Spore does reach number one in the Top Pirated PC games list published by Joystiq. Other games in this list are Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3. Not something to be specially proud of, I guess.

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