With the closure of our www.internetgumshoe.com website, I have archived the data off to a WordPress website.
This will allow you to continue to read our past reviews without the ongoing hosting costs.
THE READERS HAVE VOTED. INTERNET GUMSHOE CLOSES
01
Jun
At the start of this year InternetGumshoe was days away from closure and our great readership saved it.
In the days that followed I received lots of support and the webOS readership donated over $120 within 3 days of the donation button going live.
I refocused the website to fully support the webOS platform and the iOS side of things became more of a side line.
Sadly, even as we stuck with webOS, the readership appears to have not been so loyal to us or webOS.
Our readership has declined massively over the last few months with May showing a total of 2,650 visitors, which is less than 100 visitors to the website a day.
In May we received a total donatation of $5, and spent $37.10 on hosting and reviews. The large increase in spending on applications was due to the lack of free applications being released and that only two developers offered promo codes for webOS software in May. As our goal was to bring you daily reviews it has meant spending money to review the new applications.
I have never been one to ask people for money and it was hard for me to take donations for the site, which I wanted to give information and reviews for free.
So given that the website has now almost run out of money and the readership has declined to less than one hundred people a day, I felt that I had to make a tough decision on the sites future.
As you may know, I am the only person looking after the InternetGumshoe after our old sponsor removed their support and this site has become more of a hobby since then.
I looked at time I am spending each day on the website (90 minutes or more) for 365 days a year, so this was 46.5 hours of work. I looked at donation of $5 for May and then at the less than 100 visitors a day. There was only one real conclusion I could draw from this data.
As of today, I will be closing the InternetGumshoe for good. I will use the remaining funds to keep the hosting up for another month so any readers can view our back catalogue of reviews.
I will be removing the donate buttons from the site, as I expect one or two of you will want to donate again to keep the site going for a few more days or months, but I would not be happy doing it any more knowing the small readership that will see the reviews.
There are many readers (well less than 100 anyway) who will be disappointed by this and I totally understand. Believe me this was not a decision I made overnight, but have been considering for a long time.
For those looking for webOS reviews and information I have to recommend the webOS Nation http://www.webosnation.com/ it is the place that is managing to keep webOS alive, let’s face it, they have the reviews, forums and homebrew side of things covered and I could never hope to build that side of things up here much as I have tried in the past.
I have given this site more than two years of my life, putting in countless hours of work. I have to face facts that it has failed to make an impact and I would be better off spending my time on another project.
This does not mean I have abandoned webOS, I am still supporting the GMMan’s replacement for Pivot, and you never know the InternetGumshoe may find a home in those pages in some small way.
My kindess regards and best wishes to you all.
Neil
Long live webOS…
STEWIE SOUND-BOARD [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (65%)
31
May
Stewie Sound-board is released by Fouad Chikh.
“WARNING : May contain explicit language . Stewie Griffin gets his own soundboard. Hilarious clips of Stewie from the Family Guy animated tv series. Lots of Fun.”
This application turns your Touchpad into a Stewie Sound board.
If you are a fan of the family guy cartoon, then you can replay some of Stewie’s most famous lines. Some of the sound clips are short and just reply the text shown on the button, others are full length audio clips for the complete scene it was said.
At present, the application offers 38 sound clips, so the price per clip is reasonable.
To clips have clearly been taken from the cartoon directly, so you can sometimes pick up editing and the sound quality on some clips are not perferct, but each of the clips is reasonable or better quality.
The user interface is pretty basic, with the buttons for the sound clips and a image of Stewie behind them. There are no options, preferences etc.
On the upside:
- Simple to use sound-board.
On the downside:.
- Only 38 sounds.
- Some of the sound are not the highest quality recording.
Overall, for fans of Family Guy and especially Stewie will find some fun here, however, it will get pretty old after listening a few times and showing friends. For a sound board you just about get what you paid for.
Rating: 65%
Size: 54.8 MB
Price (at time of review): £0.79 ($0.99)
BOOKMARKED [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (68%)
30
May
bookMarked is a internet browsing tool released by Webdata Design Group.
“bookMarked – Manage your favorite webpages with ease! – Home Page – Categorized bookmarks – Web view Tabs This app was designed for those who like to have quick and easy access to their favorite websites. Open up to 4 web views without leaving the app!”
When you open the app it is preloaded with a selection of categories each populated with big name sites in their own categories, such as social, sport and news.
You can add new book marks by visiting a website and the clicking the paperclip. This will allow you to add the bookmark and the category that it will belong to (or add a new one)
You can also star a website, setting the website as your home page etc time the application loads.
bookMarked uses a two column view, with the catagories and links on the left hand side, and then the browser window in the large window to the right. You can change this into a full page display for the browser window.
There is a useful help section and full instructions for the application
I feel this application is very much for people who are new to the web, who want to easily bookmark page and see their favorite sites.
The user interface is good. The application is easy to use and allows you to quickly navigate to the next website you wish to look at.
My biggest issue with the application is the time that some pages take to load, I have a massively fast internet speed and I am use to pages loading within one or two seconds maximum, so when I am waiting 15 to 20 seconds for a simple page to load it is very noticable. It is hard to tell which the loading can be so slow, as sometimes the pages do load at almost normal speeds (especially when cached).
On the upside:
- Good User Interface.
- Easy to add a new bookmark.
On the downside:
- Very slow to load pages at times.
- You have to remember what is on each of the tabs.
- Annoying start up sound.
Overall, this is an interesting application, that in the first days of the Touchpad would have had a place. It does have a good feature list of functions, it just needed to go them a little better. For tab browsing I use Advance Browser and for book marking I use Touch Surf. If bookMarked was quicker and tweaked I may use it but not as it stands.
Rating: 68%
Size: 3.4 MB
Price (at time of review): £0.79 ($0.99)
BLANK MAPS (COLD SPECKS) – S.O.T.W. – REVIEW (70%)
30
May
Blanks Maps by Cold Specks is this weeks free single of the week.
This song is a good release from iTunes.
Apple has this marked as an alternative track.
The music track is more acostic in nature with guitar and backing singing, then picks ups a little in pace as the song progresses adding more tune.
The well song is sung by the female singer, her lyrics are very clear.
Overall, this is a nice song to listen to, but lacks any real catchness. The song washes over you and do not grab you in any way. More of an easy listening track than a chart topper.
Rating: 70%
Price (at time of review): Free
QUICK-KEYS KEYBOARD [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (63%)
29
May
Quick-Keys Keyboard is a text expander / entry tool released by D Gardner.
“Quick-Keys Keyboard interacts with virtually every app on your WebOS device. You can type one word and send it to any text field on your device. Or With one simple tap of a Quick-Key, You have Quick-Keys that stores anything like a Password, Login, Email, sentence, phone number, or an Address.”
This application allows you to create quick keys and other text expansion on your webOS device.
As a quick warning, the developer does make it clear that the Touchpad does lack functionality that the phone users get, and has issues in the browser application.
The application works by addition a keyboard to your device. There is a standard keyboard and then a quick keyboard with numbers from 1 to 28.
On the Touchpad the standard keyboard is a bit too small for effective typing, but the quick keys are reasonable, as you will be only tapping a single key.
When you first open the application you will set up the preferences for its use and you can edit any of the quick keys, for example, if I tap 1, I have a sizable amount of text appear, if I tap 2, as password could be entered.
When I first came to use the application the keyboard would not appear at all, I would tap on the notification keyboard icon and only the application with its preferences would appear. I rebooted the Touchpad in the end and when I reopened the application after the reboot, and re-enabled the keyboard it worked fine.
After trying to type with the small keyboard offered, I found swipe to type just too small to use effectly, even when changing the response times. I just needed a bigger keyboard.
The quick keys option did work well, and helpfully it does include the user of carriage returns, so you can have limited control over the formatting on the quick text. Allowing for entry of addresses etc.
The user interface is small and cramped. It is a real shame that the Touchpad keyboard could not be replaced or the Keyboard could not make a little more use of the Touchpad screen size, however, these are likely to be limitations due to webOS.
On the upside:
- Quick Keyboard entry is useful.
- Lots of preferences and options.
On the downside:.
- I found it difficult to get it to launch for the first time, it would always return to options screen.
- Keyboard is too small to type effectively.
- Not very user friendly at times.
Overall, the idea behind the application is good, and seems to work better on the Phone than the Touchpad as it is not able to replace the Touchpad keyboard. For me, only the quick key text entry was useful. The small keyboard you can bring up is too small to use effectly. At present, it is worth a look for webOS phone owners, but for Touchpad owners it is not as worthwhile.
Rating: 63%
Size: 8.9 MB
Price (at time of review): £0.79 ($0.99)
UBERRADIO [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (71%)
28
May
UberRadio makes your Touchpad into a radio alarm clock and is released by MetaViewSoft.
“Now Pre3 and TouchPad (HD) enhanced and extra alarm settings for each weekday. A full-featured internet streaming radio with sleep, snooze & alarm clock! Never oversleep with offline fallback and safe alarm mode. UberRadio – the next generation web radio application.”
When this application first opens it immediately offers you a list of default radio types to select from. These are:
- German Stations
- US Classic Stations
- UK Rock Stations
- US Country Stations
- UK Stations
Once select you will get around twenty stations in your channel list. You can view the list and modify if there are some channels you like or dislike. If you know the website addresses of your favorite channels they can be added.
The application has several preferences and allows you to set up extras to the alarm if you are oversleeping and a default song if the internet connection is unavailable to launch the radio channel.
You can use UberRadio as an internet radio player, and you can set a sleep timer if you are listening before bed.
The internet radio side of things works well, but it did suffer from the occasional halting of the feed, this seemed odd as I have a good internet connection and when tested on another device the same stream held.
The user interface is generally good, it can be slow to find a channel if you set up too many, but you can sort into ones you use more. I could easily set the alarms, but you can only seem to clear alarms in one go from the preference screen.
On the upside:
- Easy to set up with default radio channels.
- Can modify channels if you know the web links to enter.
On the downside:
- The streams seem to stop every so often, I have not had this issue with other applications.
- The only clock on screen once the alarms are set is the standard toolbar clock.
- Not available in Exhibition mode?
- No quick way to get out of the station list, need to scroll to the end and press OK.
Overall, this is a good application. It allows you to quickly set up the radio channels and alarms. It does most of the functions of an alarm clock, apart from a sizable clock. With some tweaks this could be a great radio alarm for the Touchpad.
Rating: 71%
Size: 3.2 MB
Price (at time of review): £1.19 ($1.49)
Link: UberRadio – MetaViewSoft
AIR HORN {HOMEBREW} [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (60%)
27
May
Air Horn turns your webOS device into an air horn and is released by AwesomePalmPre127.
“Have you ever wanted to make a sort-of loud bang with your webOS phone but couldn’t? With Airhorn, your problems are over!”
This application does exactly what it claims, it allows you to make a loud noise with the Touchpad.
Air Horn is a simple. one function application. It works and does that function (as long as you do not tap or hold too long.)
The airhorn graphic is OK and the sound effect sounds fine too.
The user interface is just a photo of an air horn, tap it for the sound, hold a little and the info screen appears.
On the upside:
- Turns your webOS device into an Air Horn.
- Annoy your friends and enemies alike.
On the downside:
- Only runs as emulation on the Touchpad.
- Can accidently trigger the information page rather than sound the horn.
Overall, this is a simple app, that does the task it is designed to do. I have given a lower rating as on the Touchpad it is not full screen and the issues with triggering the sound. If you want to have an Air Horn, or like annoying others, then this application is well worth the download. Otherwise, there is nothing to see here.
Rating: 60%
Size: 1 MB
Price (at time of review): Free
SLIDESHOW PRESENTATION HD [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (80%)
26
May
Slideshow Presentation HD is a digital photo frame tool and is released by Apps by Chris.
“Create stunning and custom slideshows and photo projects that you can set to music. Turns your TouchPad into a beautiful digital photo frame!”
This application opens to an information screen that tells you a bit about the application and how it works, along with telling you not to switch off while the application is saving.
The main menu once opened is well layout out and immediately allows you to jump into designing your first slideshow.
You can add any photo from your Touchpad into the slideshow, by either folder or selecting them manually out of the picture selection screen.
The application offers you lots of customisation on how the images will be displayed and added to the slide show. You can really customise everything from the order they are displayed, adding Captions, Transitions and display durations.
You also have the option at add music tracks to the Slideshow, or you can leave it with no music if you wish.
You can even create and store more than one slideshow, so you can create as many as you wish and swap between them to suit your mood.
The user interface is generally good, some of the options are simple to find to use, others you will need to guess at or hunt for, however, the developer has added a useful help section.
On the upside:
- Really nice slideshows can be made.
- Plenty of options and settings to get the exact photos and display settings you want.
- Simple to add your facebook galleries into the slideshows.
On the downside:
- The odd user interface issue with menu items (oversized text on buttons or thumb nails not displaying.)
Overall, the key features of the application as easy to set up and use. The developer has clearly taken time to consider all the possible options someone would want from a digital photo frame. My parents own a digital photo frame, and this application really puts that devices options in the shade. If you love viewing photos, then this applications is well worth a look.
Rating: 80%
Size: 9.4 MB
Price (at time of review): £2.99 (developer.palm.com claims $1.29 in U.S.?)
CASH FLOWS [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (70%)
25
May
Cash Flows is a investiment calculator released by Lakshmi Solutions LLC.
“Cash Flows is an easy to use “Time Value of Money” financial assistant. The application allows you to perform complex financial calculations on single payments, equal payments & growing payments flows.”
Cash Flows is a very simple application that allows you to calculate returns on investiments depending on the original amount, interest rates and length of the investiment.
You can select between 3 payment methods, which will get some different options, these are:
- Single Payment – One off payment and see have the interest alone will grow it.
- Equal Payments – A starting amount, and then a regular payment added along with the interest.
- Growing Payment – Acts as a guide to your monthly payments to make it equal over time.
The application does work well, and you can leave some of the boxes unchanged, but you do need to enter some of the date. The Present Value, Interest Rates and the Date Period / Number of Months.
As with all these types of applications, these are guidelines and no-one can guess interest rates for any period of time.
I would have personality have liked a way to entered a good, average and poor interest outcome to give myself a better idea of outcomes. As it stands I just had to enter the details three times and do this manually.
The user interface is nicely layout out and simply, however, to select between the payment types you need to tap the brown bar at the base of the screen, simple when you know it, but just not clear to a first time user.
On the upside:
- Functionality works well once learnt.
- Good selection of periods and date ranges.
On the downside:.
- Navigation was not immediately clear.
Overall, this is a very simple application that can help you plan your saving based on interest rates and time. The application feels like it is worth the purchase price, so if you are looking at help planning your savings it is worth a look.
Rating: 70%
Size: 2.8 MB
Price (at time of review): £0.79 ($0.99)