On September 9th, 2009 the seller Steve Parker released the version 1.0.3 of the Business News application for the iPhone OS 3.0. If you are looking for an application that will provide you with all the latest news in the business area then you are in luck; Business News is the easiest news reader application available in the App Store. Business News is a news browser that formats all the interesting business news sites into an daily easy to read electronic newspaper.
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This browser allows you to view all the selected news either in landscape mode or portrait mode. Business News retrieves by default its business news from: Yahoo! Business, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Financial Times, CNN Money, Business Week, Newsweek, Reuter Business News, Fox Business, Dow Jones Financial News, CNBC, and Bloomberg.com. So what features does Business News application provides? Business News provides more features and options than any other application its kind. It has an user friendly interface because the sources are presented visually with their logos (just touch a business news logo and you the browser will open it).

There is no need for multiple business application because Business News provides all the necessary information you might need or want. This application provides the news from more than 12 different business sites. You can either visualize the information on the portrait mode or in landscape mode (therefore you will access full screen viewing).



When in Full Screen Viewing mode you can shake the iPhone or iPod in order to get access to the controls while in portrait mode if you shake either your iPhone or iPod touch you can change your preferred business site as your default source news. You can even add your own business news sources and keep a list with all your favorites' business sites. You can enter any address. In order for your iPod touch or iPhone to run this application they must be running at least iPhone OS 2.1 or higher.

Also keep in mind that you will need an internet connection (EDGE, Wi-Fi or 3G). Therefore if you are a business man or woman (let's hope we can add successful to the equation) and you need a permanent flow of business news than you should try this application. It promises to offer in just one icon all the necessary information that you might get from a full page of iPhone or iPod touch business news software applications.

Over a decade ago, I got my first computer, and that one came with a hard drive only 2.1GB in size. I will never forget it, it was a Quantum Pioneer SG - an amazing drive, probably still working today in someone's computer (we parted ways about 5 years ago). Despite that size, which now may seem tiny, I had a few partitions, and usually going with Windows and a Linux distribution (Red Hat, if I remember well), using a commercial boot manager (System Commander) that I got from a friend of mine who bought a bunch of licenses for his company.

A few years later, I was thinking about getting a new hard drive. Back in those days, I had two drives - the Quantum I mentioned above, and a larger Seagate (8.4GB one). Really scared by the idea of reinstalling Windows and moving all my stuff, I talked with my friend, and he offered to give me a license for Acronis Migrate Easy, a great disk solution that would help me move all my partitions from a drive to another without having to reinstall anything. Obviously, I didn't disagree with that idea, and it all worked perfectly!

Today, we'll be playing with the demo version of Acronis Disk Director Suite 10, because my friend sold the company and is now enjoying the sunshine in some remote island, getting back from time to time for a few beers and a chat, so I couldn't get a commercial edition from him. Oh, well, at least he sold everything before the so-called "crisis," so I can't say I feel sorry for him, but let's leave him enjoy his corner of paradise and get back to our topic here now, shall we?


Setup

Acronis Disk Director Suite's trial version comes in a 68.5MB setup package, but that's not much at all, if we take a closer look at all the tools this baby has. Anyway, that's something we should discuss in the Features section, so now let's stick to the installation part...

... and I must confess there's not much to say about it, only that the setup program looks and works just great, as it's supposed to, so going through this first step was like a walk in the park! Looking back, I could also say nothing's changed, since all the Acronis products I ever used, even as trial/demo versions, were extremely easy to install.

These being said, the time has come to move on and fire up the application! What do we see? Yup, you got it right - it's the...


Interface

If you ever used programs like VCOM's Partition Commander or the notorious Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director Suite's interface won't look like a new sight for your eyes. When firing up the program for the first time, you're being allowed to choose the interface mode, and there are two choices available - Automatic and Manual.

As usual, I go with the one giving me more power over the piece of code I have in my hands, so it's Manual Mode for me, but I am sure beginners will love the other one, since it offers a lot of wizard-driven operations. In the end, all that really matter is to get the job done, right?

Anyway, if you're feelin' lucky and you worked with such programs before, choosing the Manual Mode is the best thing to do, since everything is well organized and all the options are just one or two clicks away, so you won't get lost, believe me!


Features

The utilities coming as parts of this software suite are the following: Bootable Media Builder, Recovery Expert, Disk Editor, and the OS Selector. The good part is that all of them can be directly accessed from the main window, except the OS Selector, so I'll start with it...

Acronis OS Selector, as you probably imagined already, is a boot manager that allows you to easily pick the OS to load or even the hard drive you want to boot from, but most home users won't need it. Why? Let me give you a hint - if you want to have Windows XP, Vista/7, and some Linux distro on the same hard drive, it's enough to create the needed partitions, and be careful to install in this order - XP, Vista/7, Linux. That's all about it, and since I mentioned partitioning...

... let's take a look at the partition-related operations that can be performed by the tools inside the Disk Director Suite from Acronis: move, copy, resize, split, and merge hard drive partitions, but there's even more, because you can also check or defragment partitions with a single click inside the main window of the suite, although the operations are performed using the tools built inside Windows.

Acronis Recovery Expert and Acronis Disk Editor will also take care of your partitions and disks, the first one being able to recover lost or damaged partitions, while the other is a tool for power user that allows restoration of boot records, as well as hexadecimal data editing.

I don't know why I left the Bootable Media Builder tool to come last, because this is the first tool in the package that you should use (the one in the trial suite is fully functional)! Why am I saying this? Well, in case something goes wrong, you'll be able to boot using the disk (or even bootable Flash drive!) created with it, and then restore everything to the previous state. Sweet!

Other than the above... I don't know what to say, because Acronis Disk Director Suite feels like home to me. Maybe you understand this already, maybe you will after giving this program a try, but let me say this: for $49.99, you won't get anything better than this, at least not on Earth, not in this galaxy! ;)


The Good

Acronis Disk Director Suite offers an impressive amount of tools for a really good price, as I said earlier, and it comes with support for large drives (1TB here, and I guess it can go above that, anyway) and all editions of Windows Vista. Oh, did I mention that the documentation is extremely well done? Add that one to the list, too, and see what's the result! ;)


The Bad

The trial version can't change anything to your hard drive, apart from creating 7.8MB partitions (1 cylinder), and if you're going to install the OS Selector, it will start with a 15 seconds delay after 15 days. Obviously, the full version doesn't have these "problems," so everything's just fine.


Conclusion

Acronis Disk Director Suite is a software package that my mom won't ever use, but if you're one of those who like to test all kinds of operating systems and have reliable disk tools by their side, this is one of the best choices money can buy!

Developer: Acronis Inc.
Price: $49.99
Trial Link: Download

The App Rankings was released on September 8, 2009by seller, Glenda Adams with the version 1.3.1 for the iPhone OS 3.0. You can find it on the App Store in Utilities for only $2.99. Whether you are a developer anxiously watching your application sales, or just a fan, the App Ranking software allows you to watch the App Store Top 100 rankings for multiple iPhone OS 3.0 devices. This is an extremely useful application for all iPhone developers. It is slick, easy to use, and fast. It really tracks the applications you are looking for and you can see how well those applications are doing. One good quality element is that the Maverick Software also very responsive and helpful with support related questions. How does it work? It is really easy to use by simply search an application by name, developer or keywords, then add it into the tracking list.
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The applications ranking in the categories Top 100 will be automatically retrieved. The excellent feature is that you can track as many different applications in any categories from the App Store. For all of these to function you will need an internet connection (EDGE, 3G or WiFi) to add new applications and also to retrieve rankings. At least the history can be viewed without a connection from your iPod or iPhone.



A few things you need to check out before starting the App Rankings application: check if you have chosen the correct category, country and the status of the selected applications (free or paid). Another reminder is that you should refresh the list in order to get a real life raking of the applications. A full history is also saved in order for you to view ranking over time. If you think about it, only the thought of what this application does is fantastic. What special features can be pointed out? Well you can track both free and paid applications.



The App Rankings will display a graphical history for each application tracked. You can evenly track the same application in different categories from different countries. You can arrange the list of applications in any order. Form groups for a better structure (categories, name, country and others). You can also track any application in the App Store from any country. The number of the application you could search is unlimited.

If you have applications on the App Store then you should use App Rankings to ease your search for it. Also the newest version of the App Rankings adds new feature when you touch the chart point (it shows both ranking and date at that point)