WinZip moves to Cloud as a ZipShare

Winzip is a file compression utility that has been using from many years to manage the space or say using less space. Now-a-days, millions of people store their data in the cloud and share their files online and may find the storage space problems. So for this, Winzip has made a shift to the cloud. Now the Winzip makers are launching a Zipshare that manages the file, zip the file, encryption and also has the sharing service that works with the major online file hosting platforms. Currently ZipShare is in the beta version.

Run Android Apps on desktop

Have ever felt like running an Android app on your Windows machine? Using BlueStacks, you can easily get apps from your Android device to your desktop or laptop without any complicated set up or fussing with the Android SDK.

Android Apps on Windows:

BlueStacks is essentially a self-contained virtual machine that runs Android apps on your Windows 7 computer. While it’s still in alpha, it’s surprisingly stable, pretty novel, and constantly improving. It has very little set up and runs quite nicely smoothly, albeit with a few limitations. The biggest appeal is that you don’t have to deal with the Android SDK – or even know what that is, really – and so it’s great for beginners. You can easily install apps available from BlueStacks list of free apps, and if you have an Android device, you can install many apps from your device via the Cloud Connect app. Why would anyone want to do this? Well, suppose you have an app that you really like and there’s no proper desktop equivalent. You can run it on your main computer instead of on your tiny little Android phone. Or, perhaps you’re thinking about buying a tablet, but you’re not sure what apps you’d like. You can try out many of the free apps that BlueStacks provides, or get a friend with a tablet or phone to show you the apps they use. You can play around with those apps on your desktop or laptop and see if you like them before you buy something you may or may not use. It’s pretty great for developers who want to demo their app, but for some reason don’t have access to a PC with the SDK. You can use the standard mouse to navigate everything and it works pretty well, but if you’re lucky enough to have a touch-screen, then this works spectacularly. Some of the games may require nicer hardware but most apps run fine on their own. We tried this on a year-old netbook and things ran perfectly fine. There were a few hiccups here and there, but no crashes or major slowdowns.

BlueStacks Installation:

Installing BlueStacks is easy. Just head over to the download page and grab the installer. Currently, BlueStacks only runs on Windows 7. They seem to be working on a version for Windows XP and Vista as well as Mac OS X, so we’ll hopefully see those in the near future.

Fig1: Install Wizard

After the program is installed, the installer will ask if you would like to view an introductory video. It’s very short and gives you the basics of how the program works. BlueStacks installs a desktop gadget that acts as a launcher.

 

Fig2: Gadget

You can move this around and change the opacity like normal gadgets. To open up the launcher, just give this a left-click.

Fig3:Launcher

You’ll see the list of default installed apps. Click any one to launch it.

Fig4: Desktop Thumbnail

You’ll see the app come up like it would on an Android device. Just use the mouse like you would your finger, and if you happen to have a touch-screen, then you’re probably ecstatic.

As mentioned in the intro video, you can see that there are some icons on the bottom of your screen that you can tap.

Fig5:Button Introduction

These simulate the hardware buttons found on Android devices. There’s a few extra buttons that allow you to change the screen orientation and zoom level of the apps, as well as close the app out entirely. Actually, I found that you can drag from the top panel and the notification drawer comes down. There’s even a built-in browser for when you click on “help” links and the like.

Fig6:Browser Thumbnail

The onscreen-keyboard also pops up for text boxes. Normal PC shortcuts for copying and pasting and selecting all text do not work, however.

Fig7:Desktop rotation keyboard

Adding More Apps:

Fig8:More Apps

From the BlueStacks Launcher, you can click the Get More Apps link, which will open a browser window pointed to the BlueStacks Channels website.

 Fig9:Cloud Connect Pin

Here, you’ll see a 9-digit PIN for use with the Android Cloud Connect app. You can click on the Featured Apps link on the left to browse and subscribe to the free apps available from BlueStacks.

 Fig10:Featured Apps

Of course, the big feature here is that you can add apps from an Android device as well. To do this, install the BlueStacks Cloud Connect app from the Android Market.

Fig11:Cloud Connect Description

Once installed, launch the app and enter the 9-digit PIN that you found on the BlueStacks Channels website.

 

 Fig12:Bluestacks Connect

Then all you have to do is select which apps you’d like to use in BlueStacks and hit the Sync button up top.

Fig13: Sync Screen

On your computer, you’ll see a popup in your system tray when the apps have successfully installed.

 Fig14:Subsonic

Uninstalling Apps:

When you go back to the BlueStacks Channels website, you can click on the Cloud Connect link on the left to see which apps you have installed this way.

 Fig15:Subscribing Window

To uninstall an app, just click the Subscribed button. After a little while, the app will be uninstalled from BlueStacks and you’ll see a blue Subscribe button, in case you want to reinstall it.

Limitations:

As we mentioned before, BlueStacks is currently in the alpha stage of development. While it is surprisingly stable, there are some issues. For example, not all apps were able to have their orientations switched from landscape back to portrait, though we didn’t find it to be a particular disadvantage for when it happened. There are also some limitations present in the software.

You can’t browse the Android file system from Windows. This was particularly disheartening since I love Moon+ Reader for eBooks, and to get them on the device I had to use Dropbox and download them manually. Once I got them on there, I could navigate to where they would be in the Android system folders like normal and things worked fine.

Fig16:Dropbox Notification

 

Perhaps the biggest limitation is one placed on purpose: games. Not all games will play via the app. This seems to be because of an upcoming Pro version which allows unlimited use of “premium” apps.

 Fig17:Pro Version

One final drawback is that BackStacks seems to be using Android 2.2 FroYo as a basis for running these apps. While this doesn’t pose a big problem yet – most apps aren’t reliant on 2.3/Gingerbread yet – we hope to see this change, especially since Android 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich is right around the corner.

Conclusions:

On the whole, the apps that did work by and large worked very well. Aside from a few hang-ups, BlueStacks seems like a very easy way to get Android apps working on your desktop, laptop, or even Windows tablet. Performance was smooth on our year-old netbook, a fact that was pleasantly surprising, and we can see how great this would be with a touch-screen. It’s not perfect, but it’s incredibly easy and very stable.

Ubuntu One: Best option for Cloud storage

Ubuntu One is a cloud service operated by Canonical Ltd. The service enables users to store files online and sync them between computers and mobile devices as well as stream audio and music from cloud to mobile devices.

 Fig1: Ubuntu one Window

Ubuntu One has a client application that runs on Ubuntu 9.04 and later on Windows XP or newer and Mac OS X 10.6 and higher. Other Linux distributions are supported through a console client. The source code is available through launch pad and can easily be compiled for other Unix-like operating systems such as FreeBSD. There is an Ubuntu One music app for iOS device. A free Ubuntu One account offers 5 GB of storage. The Ubuntu One service is similar to services such as iCloud, Dropbox, Google Play Music, Amazon Cloud Player. Its client code is written in Python. It uses Twisted for its low-level networking and Protocol Buffers for protocol description. Data is synced over a custom protocol called "u1storage", and stored on Amazon S3. It also has capabilities for purchasing DRM-free music while synchronizing them automatically with an Ubuntu One Account via the Ubuntu One Music Store (in partnership with 7digital). Ubuntu One publishes APIs for developers wishing to build applications with file and data synchronization or music streaming. While Ubuntu One might seem like an Ubuntu-only file synchronization service, it’s more than that – you can use Ubuntu One on Windows, Android, iOS, and from the web. Ubuntu One offers 5GB of free storage space to everyone. Following are few of those features which you might be unaware of. Lets discuss each in brief.

1) Sync Any Folder:

By default, Ubuntu only synchronizes files inside the Ubuntu One folder in your home directory. However, you can right-click any folder, point to the Ubuntu One menu and select Synchronize This Folder to start synchronizing it. You can manage your synchronized folders from the Ubuntu One application.

Fig2:  Home Screen in Ubuntu

2) Limit Bandwidth:

Ubuntu One uses all available bandwidth for file uploads and downloads by default, but you can restrict its upload and download speeds if you’re on a slower connection. The bandwidth settings are located on the Settings pane in the Ubuntu One window.

 Fig3: Ubuntu one Dialog Window

3) Use Ubuntu One on Windows:

Ubuntu One doesn’t just run on Linux – Ubuntu, it also offers a Windows client with full file synchronization support. Ubuntu One is a cross-platform file synchronization service – you can even use it if you’re a Windows user that has never used Ubuntu.

 Fig4: Ubuntu one License Agreement Window

4) Share Files:

Using the right-click menu in your file manager or the Ubuntu One website, you can share files and folders – publicly on the Internet or privately with other Ubuntu One users. We have covered using Ubuntu One to share files in the past.

 Fig5: Ubuntu one .com Website

 5) Synchronize Installed Software: 

Ubuntu One can sync the software you’ve installed from Ubuntu Software Centre between your computers, so it’s easy to keep track of which software you have installed. We’ve covered syncing software with the Ubuntu Software Centre in the past.

 Fig6: Ubuntu one Software Centre

6) Use Mobile Apps:

Ubuntu One offers apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. With the app, you can access your Ubuntu One files on the go from your mobile device.

 Fig7: Ubuntu one Mobile Apps

  

7) Automatically Upload Photos from Your Smartphone:

The mobile app also has the ability to automatically upload photos you take on your Smartphone to your personal Ubuntu One cloud, allowing easy access to your photos on all your devices.

8) Mobile Music Streaming:

Ubuntu One also offers an Ubuntu One Music app for Android and iOS. The app allows you to stream your music to your mobile device from wherever you are – you can also cache files on your device for offline listening. This feature costs $3.99 a month and includes 20GB of storage space – you can try it free for the first 30 days. It also works in concert with the Ubuntu One Music Store included with Ubuntu One’s Rhythm box music player – any music you purchase is instantly delivered to your Ubuntu One account and available in the Ubuntu One Music app.

 Fig8: Ubuntu one Music App

9) Sync Contacts:

Ubuntu One can synchronize your contacts and store them online. Currently, you can import contacts from Facebook on the Ubuntu One website or add them manually. Previous versions of Ubuntu supported contacts sync with the Evolution email client, but contact sync with Thunderbird appears to be absent in Ubuntu 12.10. 

 Fig9: Ubuntu one  Contacts Window

10) Manage Files in Your Browser:

If you don’t have Ubuntu One installed on your computer, you can access and manage your files from the Ubuntu One website. From your browser, you can download files, upload files, or manage your existing files.

 Fig10: Ubuntu one File Transfer Window

 

11) Manage Devices:

From the Devices tab in the Ubuntu One window or the Devices page on the Ubuntu One website, you can manage the computers and other devices that are linked to your account.

 Fig11: Ubuntu one User Account Window

Thus these were few of those features which Ubuntu one provides.