The iTriage app for Android, iOS, and Palm will help you diagnosis what ails you. If you don’t have a smartphone, you can still access the information on the web. It starts out with a diagram of the body and offers a list of diagnoses. Each comes with:

• Descriptions
• Causes
• Treatments
• Images (which may cause some queasiness)
• Links to YouTube videos
• Directions to find medical help
• Sources of more information

I’m not a doctor (but I wish I played one on TV) so I cannot offer guidance on whether the medical information is accurate or not. But iTriage is tremendous help finding medical care. It has databases for:

• Physicians
• Hospitals
• Clinics that treat minor illnesses
• Emergency and urgent care centers
• Community health centers (Offering subsidized care for low-income patients)
• Pharmacies

Each listing has contact information and a map. This is a valuable tool for anyone in a new area who needs anything from a new primary care physician to an emergency room. You also can request an appointment with healthcare providers you find with the app.

All listings, medicine and disease information can be saved on your phone. There also is the ability to save your insurance information. The app may be able to use the information to customize the advice hotlines you can call to get more information on your condition or finding medical care.

Conclusion

iTriage is a handy app when researching medical information, but I wouldn’t use it to turn my phone into a medical tricorder and play doctor. The physician and hospital finding functions are extremely useful, but it wasn’t very useful for finding a primary care physician in my area.

Warning: Excessive use can lead to cyberchondria.

iTriage helps people find medical care on their mobile phones is a post from Techerator.com.

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It wasn’t long ago when you could find a MacBook that was priced at an easy $1,300 and a comparable Windows laptop that cost half that. However, that was then and it’s 2012 now. Things have changed drastically.

Let’s start with a normal 15-inch laptop:

Obviously I’m not making much of a case here. The HP has more RAM and better graphics with a lower price tag. However, the price gap isn’t greatly significant.

Let’s look at all-in-one machines next:

This is a little better, but the HP Omni has better graphics and twice the HDD, but the difference in price is very small.

Now here’s where it gets very interesting. Let’s look at some thin-and-light laptops:

The Samsung has a slower processor and is the same price as the MacBook Air.

Let’s now move up to a bigger screen, thus more room for a faster machine:

Almost identical specs, but the Lenovo is $200 more than the MacBook Air.

Interesting, huh? Ultrabooks are the same price (sometimes more) as the MacBook Air, and this is where the industry is going. Expect to see thin-and-light laptops make a huge impact, and unless PC manufacturers can find cheaper ways to manufacture them, the price gap between PCs and Macs will only shrink.

Note: All prices and configurations were taken from the manufacturers’ own websites.

Are Macs really overpriced? The PC-Mac price gap is shrinking is a post from Techerator.com.

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(Just in case you haven’t seen them, I am referring to the popular series of TV adverts comparing the Apple and Microsoft ways of doing things.)

This is an app review, so it’s not the place for a Mac vs. Windows debate. For the sake of context however, I should say that after switching and enduring a sharp learning curve, I personally came to appreciate and prefer the Mac OS X way of doing things.

Little niggles remained, however. In the course of my working day, I often have many documents open at one time. Windows 7 introduced a great preview feature that shows all of the files open in an application when you hover the mouse over its taskbar icon. Earlier versions of Windows had opened each file in a separate instance of the application, so even without the Windows 7 preview, it was still easy to quickly switch between several different Word documents.

On my Mac, I became frustrated with having to go to the “Window” menu or cycle through windows in an application to quickly move between open documents. I also missed Window 7’s desktop snapping features, particularly the ability to instantly make one window take up exactly half of the screen.

Enter HyperDock, an app that appears to have been specifically designed to add these features to Mac OS X.

Hyperdock for OS X

On the evening that I first investigated HyperDock, I was put off by the price. £6.99 ($11 USD) seemed like an awful lot to pay for some OS tweaks, despite a host of 5-star App Store reviews. I put it to the back of my mind. By lunchtime the following day, I realised that I had needed to use the cumbersome way to switch between documents at least ten times. I swallowed the cost and downloaded the app.

Though it’s probably a little histrionic to say that HyperDock has changed my life, it has certainly made it less frustrating. Windows 7’s window preview was a great feature from Microsoft. HyperDock basically provides OS X with the same, but better. The app lets you change the preview size, the animation, the behavior – and even adds some cool extra features such as advanced previews for iTunes and iCal.

HyperDock gives me the window snapping features too. I can now drag a window off to the side to make it take up half the screen – perfect for comparing documents, or using one to refer too while writing. It’s the perfect example of a feature you didn’t know you needed until you had it – and after Windows 7, I was missing it.

To come down firmly on one side of the Windows vs. OS X debate is somewhat missing the point. There are always going to be things that one OS does better than the other. Utilities like HyperDock give you the best of both worlds, and what I like best about this app is that it works seamlessly, without the flaky unpredictability that I associate with Windows UI enhancements that I have tried in the past. It’s turned out to be worth every penny.

Make your Mac More Like Windows 7 with HyperDock is a post from Techerator.com.

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The QR coding system has opened a new smartphone market for content creators who can use them to interact with target audiences without requiring users to memorize URLs. Currently, the US smartphone market is about 7%; therefore, content creators have an immense opportunity to utilize the growing trend.

Advantages of QR Codes:

• Information accessibility through smartphone scans.
• You can store the URLs, addresses, and just about any information through the QR code.

Disadvantages of QR Codes:

• Smartphones must have the correct QR reader software.
• Not accessible on all mobile phones because of QR reader installation problems or lack of apps.

What can the QR code contain?

To tap the increasing smartphone users market, you can create a QR code for calendar events, contact information, email addresses, geolocation information, phone numbers, text messages, URLs, Wi-Fi networks, YouTube videos, social networking services, RSS feeds, email messages, Google Maps, App Store links, phone calls and eBay auctions.

QR code generation services:

ZXing Project, BeQRious, Delivr, Azonmedia, Maestro, goQR.me, Online Qr Lab, Mobile-Barcodes, KAYWA, and BeeTagg are some of the popular QR code generation services for free. Try them out.

How to use QR codes

If you have a blog or a website, you can place custom QR codes on your content pages. For instance, an online content creator could use QR codes to give VIP members access to events, run a contest, offer free eBooks, take a virtual tour, watch a video product or service demo, or give discount coupons and lots of other incentives.

If you’re trying to increase your email subscribers, blog readers or maybe add value to social media experience, QR codes are an excellent option.

Common pitfalls

Sometimes people make the mistake of displaying QR codes which lead to non-mobile websites. A website or blog should be mobile-friendly first before you begin to use QR codes, and it will be better if the mobile-friendly version is hosted on a sub-directory or a sub-domain of the main website/blog; hence, giving you additional SEO benefit due to the traffic they bring for the website/blog. Moreover, make sure the mobile site is not too heavy – use fewer images if possible.

Conclusion

The smartphone market is growing, and web developers and marketers can use QR codes wisely by offering incentives that users cannot ignore.

QR Codes for Smartphone Users: An Introductory Lesson is a post from Techerator.com.

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Along with the ease of self-publishing, however, comes plenty of sub-par games. In order to help you separate the games better left undownloaded from those destined to become classics, I’ve compiled here a list of upcoming games that will almost certainly be worth your time and money.

Monaco

Release Date: Unknown
Available For: PC and at least one console

Everyone loves a good heist. Hollywood continues to churn out big budget, well-received films like Reservoir Dogs, Ocean’s Eleven, Heat, and Inception. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the gaming industry, which has a severe lack of high quality heist-type games. Andy Schatz of Pocketwatch Games is looking to change that with Monaco.

Monaco is a stealth-action coop game that tasks players with infiltrating an area in order to, well, steal things. Before each mission each player chooses a class. The Hacker, for example, is quick at shutting down security systems for other players, while The Muscle is good at hitting things in the face. Success comes from players using their strengths to work together to infiltrate their target, avoid guards, and get out safely.

There is no firm release date yet for Monaco, but it has been demoed at gaming conferences like GDC. I haven’t seen any bad press from people who have been able to play it, and it’s personally one of my most anticipated game releases.

SpyParty

Release Date: Unknown
Available For: PC, Mac, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3

I’m stealing a line from the game’s website here, as it does a better job of summing up the game than I ever could:

SpyParty is an asymmetric multiplayer espionage game, dealing with the subtlety of human behavior, character, personality, and social mores, instead of the usual spy game explosions and car chases.

Sounds pretty ambitious, doesn’t it?

In SpyParty‘s main mode two players compete against each other head to head, with one player taking the role of The Spy and the other playing The Sniper. The Spy attempts to complete his mission, which could be anything from bugging an NPC to stealing a statue, while remaining as incognito as possible in a room full of NPCs. The Sniper tries to pick out the sole human controlled player from the crowd and take him out before he can finish his mission.

Chris Hecker, the developer, looks to be taking his time with this one and there isn’t a firm release date yet, but so far everything about the game looks incredibly original and fun.

The Witness

Release Date: 2012
Available For: PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3

The Witness is an upcoming title from Jonathan Blow, developer of the excellent Braid. Unsurprisingly, The Witness looks to share some of Braid’s mysterious intrigue.

People who have demoed early versions of The Witness describe it as a puzzle/exploration game, but not much more than that is known about the gameplay. Players wander the island shown above, completing various puzzles at their leisure. Most of Braid‘s charm came from exploration and discovery, so it’s not likely we’ll see many more gameplay details before release.

Blow is in no hurry to finish The Witness, and the game has a tentative release date of sometime in 2012.

Nidhogg

Release Date: Unknown
Available For: PC

Nidhogg doesn’t look like much at first, but after watching a few videos its appeal starts to show. It’s sword fighting at its most basic, distilled down to only the essentials.

Each player’s goal is simple: run to the opposite end of the map. Getting there is the tricky part, as each player is also trying to impede the progress of the other player by stabbing them. The opposing player’s death grants you a bit of time to run unopposed, but the other player respawns after just a few seconds.

While Nidhogg looks nearly finished its developer hasn’t hinted at a release date or even any release plans so there’s no telling when (or even if) we’ll be able to get our hands on it.

Hawken

Release Date: December, 2012
Available For: Most likely PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3

It’s been a while since the gaming industry has seen a decent mech combat game, but Hawken is looking to change that.

Hawken features game modes that should be familiar to anyone who has played a multiplayer FPS, but instead of playing as just a squishy human you get to take control of a few dozen tons of solid steel. The gameplay changes a mech provides should make for an interesting experience not found in the multitudes of first person shooters out there.

For an indie title Hawken looks fantastic. It’s running on the Unreal Engine so plenty of pretty graphical effects are present in addition to the amazing mech models and landscapes.

Hawken is gearing up for closed beta testing now, and official release is scheduled for December 12th of this year.

Prison Architect

Release Date: 2013
Available For: PC

After scrapping (at least temporarily) plans for their game Subversion, development studio Introversion has turned their attention to Prison Architect.

As its name might imply, Prison Architect is all about managing the intricacies of a prison. You decide everything from cell layouts to window placement, trying to figure out the optimal setup to contain a certain number of prisoners.

Fans of simulation titles like Bullfrog’s Theme Hospital or Maxis’s Sim Tower should find plenty to like about Prison Architect when it releases. Introversion is planning on releasing a paid alpha version later this year, with the full game potentially releasing in early 2013.

Six Upcoming Indie Games Worth Keeping An Eye On is a post from Techerator.com.

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By excluding results from other social networks, critics claim that Google is tampering with search results to promote its Facebook/Twitter competitor. One of those critics is Focus on the User (fotu), and it is doing something about it. They explain the problem with SPYW and their solution in this video:

The idea is that Google+ profiles and posts may not be as useful as what those users post to other social networks, so fotu gives you the option of finding what’s in those social networks that are complaining about SPYW. They have a bookmarklet that will take any Google search result that is enhanced with SPYW and add links to timely, relevant information in other social networks such as Twitter, Facebook or Quora.

As for me, I’m not convinced that this is the problem that fotu makes it out to be. Google has options such as “Verbatim” mode and “Hide personal results” that minimize SPYW, and the offending Google+ profiles don’t appear on every search. If you search for the word “politics,” you get three results linking to Google+ profiles. Search for “mitt romney,” there are none.

Unfortunately, the fotu bookmarklet doesn’t seem to do much to correct the problem. When you click on the bookmarklet (which is titled “don’t be evil”), you still get the same Google+ links but with other social network links. It still relies on Google to choose profiles from its Google+ social network. You will not get the chance to see the profile of someone without a Google+ profile.

Conclusion

This will not be the SPYW killer that Google haters want.  It’s a clever, simple tool that will help you find celebrities’ Twitter and Facebook accounts and demonstrate how Google results can be tweaked for other purposes. Otherwise, it doesn’t do that much.

“Focus on the User” inserts competing social network links into Google search results is a post from Techerator.com.

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This week, Bethesda announced an upcoming patch to correct the problems. I’ve been playing Skyrim more than any married, full-time employed person should during the time that I’ve owned it, and just hit the landmark 60 hours the other night. Coincidentally, my save file is right about 11 MB now, well above the stated 6 MB size. I’ve experienced almost no glitches, and nothing to agree with the aforementioned issues.

If my memory serves me, I’ve experienced two game freezes and minimal framerate drops, and all of it has occurred while I was background downloading content from the PlayStation Store. Since running the game is I/O intensive on the HDD, as is downloading content from the store, this does not surprise me in the least. I’ve seen videos of the supposed problem, but I can’t help to think there’s a good explanation that doesn’t fall squarely on the shoulders of Bethesda.

My question is this: Is there really a problem, or are users complaining about nothing? I bring this up, not only because I have yet to experience any significant problems during my significant time spent in Skyrim, but also because Skyrim on PS3 runs noticeably smoother than Oblivion did on the Xbox 360. Even at the worst of times, Skyrim compares nicely to the previous Elder Scrolls title at its best.

I know, comparing Skyrim to a game released over 5 years ago isn’t fair, but it’s the best frame of reference that I have, and users were crying foul back then as well. Personally, I had more problems with Oblivion on the Xbox 360 than I did with Oblivion on PS3 (yes I did play through the entire game on both consoles), and I’ve yet to experience problems with Skyrim on PS3. Maybe my life experience has made me a skeptic, but I’m not buying it. At its best, Skyrim is an ambitious game on a grand scale. At its worst, it is a flawed game with an occasional glitch and framerate hiccup, but not unplayable by any means.

And now I open up the floodgates: Have you experienced problems with Skyrim on your PS3? Am I an idiot for insinuating that there is no issue? Let me know in the comments below.

Skyrim on PS3: Took an arrow to the knee is a post from Techerator.com.

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Getting logged in is as simple as you’d expect, and Steam mobile even has support for Steam’s relatively recent Steam Guard account protection. Whenever you try to log into Steam on a new device Valve sends an e-mail containing a one time activation code to the address they have on file. You can’t log in without first entering that code. It adds an appreciated level of security for a service that many users have sunk hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars into.

Instead of trying to navigate Steam’s desktop-minded website on your phone you can now access Steam’s most useful features with an interface that has mobile devices in mind. Chat with your friends, check out active deals, or browse Steam’s entire catalog, all from your phone. You can even buy games directly from the app. If you don’t mind the extra icon in the status bar Steam will run in the background, making you available for chat no matter where you are (this service can be disabled in the Settings menu, where you can also set your preferences for receiving chat messages).

The Steam mobile app had a short closed beta period, but is now available for everyone who wants it. Get it for free from the official store for your preferred platform.

Valve Releases Steam Mobile App for Android and iOS is a post from Techerator.com.

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iBooks Author is an important tool because creating an ebook is a bit more complicated that exporting a Word document as a PDF. Self publishing services such as Lulu, Smashwords and Amazon’s CreateSpace, and Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! have free templates that you can use to create your ebook. Cover art is usually uploaded as a separate file. Your files are converted into the ePub format that will be readable by ebook readers such as Nook and Kindle.

All this is free – that is, until you actually sell your ebooks. These services can take anywhere from 15 percent to 30 percent in commissions. While that’s more lucrative than royalties paid by traditional publishers, you may want to truly self-publish your books. There are tools that will export ePub and PDF formats, allowing you to sell your own ebooks and/or distribute through one of the services.

Here are some free options that you can use to create ebooks on your own:

• PressBooks: This service is a WordPress blog that lets authors export books in ePub, Kindle, print-on-demand-ready PDF, HTML and inDesign-ready XML.
• eCub: This free app works on Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD and Solaris systems. It’s a very basic tool without WYSIWYG.
• Sigil: Free WYSIWYG ebook editor works in Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Jutoh costs $39 and is a WYSIWYG ebook editor imports text files or lets you create the ebook from scratch. It works in Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. Some word processing and design apps such as Atlantis, Adobe InDesign, Pages and Scrivener will export documents in ePub format.

Conclusion

It may be worth your while to create your ebook with one of these apps before uploading it to an ebook selling service. They may be easier to use than the templates provided, and having your own ePub-formatted manuscripts give you more flexibility for selling your books.

How to create, format and self-publish your own eBook is a post from Techerator.com.

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But if what I am saying is right, then why hasn’t this all come true yet? The reasons are many, some minor and easily overcome, and some not so much. Let’s start with an explanation of what HTML5 and JavaScript advancements are already doing in the mobile world.

HTML5 is the new HTML standard.

Major enhancements such as the <”video”> tag, CSS3 animations and better JavaScript support are what have made HTML5 such a hot topic. With the power of HTML5, web developers and programmers can write software in a cross-platform language and save significant time and effort.

HTML 5 Development Platforms

Some companies, such as Sencha who developed Sencha Touch, and Prism Technologies who developed PhoneGap, have created mobile development platforms that reach from Android and iOS all the way back to Blackberry and Windows Phone 7. The reason these platforms are so flexible is because they utilizes HTML5, advanced JavaScript and CSS3 to replicate a native app using a web browser.

I’ve had experience using Sencha Touch and PhoneGap (PhoneGap makes it easy for users to load HTML5 libraries into a native app “wrapper”, which can access hardware-specific functions such as the camera and accelerometer, for distribution on an app market) and have found that while it is very useful while building information and text driven applications, it is not very effective in creating graphically intense applications such as ones with photo galleries, interactive menus, or games. This leads me to why HTML5 has its limits in the mobile world today.

Mobile Browsers

Each mobile OS has a browser that is used to generate the HTML5 application. The problem is that not every browser was created equal, especially when it comes to HTML5 support. When looking at HTML5 on an iOS devices such as an iPhone 4s, HTML5 is very responsive and smooth.

This is not so true with Android and Blackberry. Although Android has good support for most of HTML5, it has many “artifacts” or poorly handled graphical renderings that make it slower, less attractive, and overall less responsive than its iOS counterpart. This is the main reason development of HTML5 has not surpassed development of native applications to date. There are a few other limitations to HTML5 such as hardware support when accessing components like the camera or file systems, but HTML5 hopes to circumvent that soon with future standards.

The conclusion is that HTML5, while being very powerful and flexible when used with JavaScript and CSS3, is not yet a suitable replacement for native development and therefore one must first consider the goal of the said application before deciding to proceed with development in HTML5 or native environments.

But don’t forget, according to Strategy Analytics, more than 1 billion HTML5 supported phones will be sold worldwide by 2013. Read more here.

You can read more about mobile HTML5 support here.

HTML5 and the Future of Mobile Apps and Gaming is a post from Techerator.com.

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