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How to run Windows 10 on your Mac for free

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Because you can. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Because you can. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

One of the selling points of a Mac these days is the ability to run Windows software on it, via virtualization or Apple’s own Boot Camp. Running Windows lets you play PC games that haven’t been ported to the Mac, or stay completely compatible with your documents from a PC-centric workplace.

Virtualization software like Parallels or VMWare Fusion (two of the best apps to run Windows software on your Mac without partitioning your hard drive for Boot Camp) isn’t free, though these applications do allow you to try before you buy. Windows 8.1, the current version of Microsoft’s operating system, will run you about $120 for a plain-jane version.

You can run the next-gen OS from Microsoft (Windows 10) on your Mac using virtualization for free, however. We took a quick run at doing just that, as originally sussed out by the fantastic folks over at iMore.

Use Recordit To Create A Quick Screencast For Free [OS X Tips]

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Recordit Screencast

Have you ever wanted to create a quick video of yourself doing something interesting on your Mac? Need to show someone in another department how you manage your files, or the tagging system you employ using Mavericks?

You can create a screencast with many third-party tools, some of them quite robust and expensive, but there’s a new one that’s both free and easy to use.

It’s called Recordit, and the developers sent along a version for us to try out here at Cult of Mac Tips HQ, and we’re pretty impressed. Recordit allows anyone to create a quick recording (up to five minutes) of any portion of their screen and share it via a URL.

Realmac Software Makes Clear Free For 24 Hours

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Clear for iOS 7 on iPhone

Clear, the popular to-do list management tool for iOS from Realmac Software, is now free for the next 24 hours.

The promotion is designed to give those who purchased the now defunct Clear+ the opportunity to migrate to the original app without having to pay again — but those who have never purchased Clear can take advantage of the offer, too.

Put Fashion First With New Blogger-Centric App, Flink

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Flink

Whether you’re a fashionista looking for new sources of inspiration or a tone-deaf jeans and t-shirt kind of dresser, new app Flink will help you connect to the world of fashion blogging.

Flink allows you to see hot new “looks” from the top fashion bloggers around the web, including Garance Doré, La revue de Kenza, Adenorah, Absolutely Glamourous, Mercredie, le blog de Lilou, Modasic, and Blondie Baby. You can also save these looks for later, visit the original blog posts, and “heart” the looks you love.

When you first launch the app, you’ll tap to follow as many of the included bloggers, and then tap your way through each of the photos included in each screen. You can tap through to see what clothes and accessories make up each look, or you can just swipe through and see various images of the different parts.

All in all, if you’re looking to kick up your fashion knowledge, or just find some new looks to recreate in your own life, Flink just might be the free app you’re looking for.

Source: App Store: Flink | Free | Epic Dream

Sync Photos To Storage Gives You One Tap iOS Photo Backup

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There are tons of solutions to get iOS photos from your device to some sort of backup system, from Dropbox to iPhoto. Backing up your photos is imperative, especially on iOS, as the iCloud backup system doesn’t back up photos, and PhotoStream only keeps the last 1,000 photos on your phone synced to all your enabled devices.

Backing up to cloud services is extremely convenient, but what happens when you no longer want to pay for the storage, or would rather hang on to your digital memories on your own computer? Sure, you can connect to your Mac with a cable, but then you’ve got to do the hard work of figuring out which photos you’ve already backed up.

Sync Photos To Storage, a new app from developer Simplex Solutions, aims to make this process much, much easier.

Google Glass Owners Get Free Upgrade

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If you’re a Google Glass Explorer who paid $1,500 to get your hands on the device early, then you can expect to receive an email from Google inviting you to upgrade to the latest model free of charge. The design of the new wearable remains the same, but it’s not more durable and slightly faster.

No Turkeys Here: The Best Games On Sale for Thanksgiving [Roundup]

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joining hands

It’s a day for giving thanks, here in the US, and a ton of iOS developers have decided to thank us all by putting their fantastic games on sale for the iOS platform. We’ve slogged through the sales out there for this weekend and put together a list of the best deals and sales on games we could find.

We’ll keep updating this post as we get more great gaming deals to send your way.

Charming Free-To-Play Match-Three Game Dragon Academy Is Live In The App Store

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Dragon Academy

With an odd mix of Bejeweled and Pokemon, including a dash of inspiration from Puzzles and Dragons, Dragon Academy aims to be your next iOS game addiction. available now in the App Store for the low price of free-to-play, Dragon Academy tasks you with matching jewels of different dragon-enhancing powers to level up your adorable, charming dragons for even more jewel-matching fun.

We got the chance to sit down with Trent Polack, creative director at developer Team Chaos, and chat a bit about dragons, “hatch-three” puzzle games, and why the team decided to go with such a saturated genre to begin with.

Dragon Finga‘s Hilarious Combat Makes Up For A Lack Of Substance [Review]

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Dragon Finga

The idea of being a martial-arts master has always sounded cool to me. But not the Zen-like, pensive, thoughtful type. If I’m honest, I’d really just kinda like to be the guy in the movies who can walk into a room full of generic dudes and beat them all up while they attack him one at a time. And I’m not particularly proud of that, but I challenge you to picture yourself doing it and not once think, “Yeah, that would be pretty neat.”

Dragon Finga by Another Place
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price:Free

But one thing is standing between me and that dream. Alright, maybe a few more than one, but one major thing: I am completely uncoordinated. I don’t have the balance or grace to execute any of the amazing fighting maneuvers I see in movies, and so I watch them with a sad sort of wistfulness and self-disappointment. And this feeling extends to video games, in which physics and animations unbound by natural law allow for inhuman feats of martial prowess about which my clumsy limbs can only dream. If limbs dream, I guess.

Anyway, Dragon Finga, the recently released fighter by developer Another Place, did not inspire those feelings of inadequacy in me because it contains the least graceful fighting system I’ve ever seen.

And that’s a good thing.

90s Trivia Game Comes To iOS As Multiplayer, Multi-Device You Don’t Know Jack Party

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YDKJ Party Logo

I’m really not a fan of trivia games. Any time someone drags out Trivial Pursuit at a party, I’m the first to come up with an excuse not to play. But You Don’t Know Jack was always different. It’s a trivia game with attitude, a sense of humor, and a weird bald mascot. What’s not to like?

The original game launched in 1995, and now it’s on iOS with a new title: You Don’t Know Jack Party. This is a new, live multiplayer version of the trivia game that lets you connect up to four different iOS devices to one Apple TV and play together in the same room on the big screen, via a secondary, free JackPad controller app.

Sure, there’s also a single player experience, but it won’t be as much fun.

Boom! Tanks Is Simple, Fun … And Monotonous [Review]

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Boom! Tanks

If you love tanks but find your standard-size garage and local laws too restrictive, you might want to check out Boom! Tanks, a free-to-play armored combat game by developer Codemasters.

Boom! Tanks by Codemasters
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

This love letter to all things treaded and turreted tells the story of one group of people with tanks squaring off against a less-good group of people with tanks, and — look, it’s called Boom! Tanks. You can probably guess what you’re signing up for.

Combat in Boom! Tanks works like this: At the beginning of the round, you drag and hold an aiming cursor over your enemy in order to lock it into your targeting system. Once this is done, you will always hit; the question becomes how hard. And you figure that out with a timing-based minigame in which you try to stop a marker as close to the middle of the meter at the bottom of the screen as you can. Stopping it directly in the middle grants you a “Perfect Shot” which does more damage. Meanwhile, the game drives your tank around; you don’t even have to worry about that.

Where’s My Water? 2 Still Delights With New Modes, Microtransactions [Review]

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Where's My Water? 2

I really expected better of Disney.

Where’s My Water? 2 by Creature Feep
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

A company that famous for creating, maintaining, and promoting franchises really should have known better than to end the first game of an almost guaranteed series with a question mark. So then the sequel comes around, and it’s called Where’s My Water? 2. Look at that 2. It’s just stuck out there alone, looking all awkward. I really feel bad for the little guy. I don’t know why Disney didn’t just call this game something like, Seriously, Where’s My Water?. Total missed opportunity to raise the stakes.

Oh, the game? Yeah, it’s pretty good.

Myst-like The Room Is Our iOS Game Of The Week [Editor’s Pick]

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The Room

Evan loved it, which made us want to try it. And try The Room we did, finding it to be a gorgeous, brain-engaging, Myst-like exploration of the puzzle genre, with some amazing 3D mind-benders to solve.

Here’s our video showing us solving the third chapter; we’ve condensed it a bit so that you’ll still have to do your own puzzle solving, though.

Sudoku’s Fun, Way More Interesting Younger Brother – FlowDoku [Review]

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FlowDoku

I’m going to come clean on something: I really hate Sudoku.

FlowDoku by HapaFive
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

I don’t know what it is about it; maybe it’s because it’s supplanted my beloved crossword as the go-to newspaper puzzle. Maybe it’s because I suspect that one could throw logic aside and accidentally solve it, possibly while drinking. Or maybe it’s just because it’s popular, and my Grinch heart is two sizes too small.

Whatever the reason, my heart or my booze, I’m not a fan. So I didn’t really expect to like FlowDoku, a shape-focused version of my puzzle nemesis by developer Hapafive. Turns out I was wrong, and I learned a very important lesson about prejudice.

You Are The Anti-Katamari In Giant Boulder of Death [Review]

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Giant Boulder of Deat

I’ve played as a lot of things in my gaming career. I’ve been vampires, I’ve been space marines, and there was even a brief time back in 1993 where I was a walking circle with sunglasses. I’ve never played as a rock, though, so developer PikPok’s latest offering, Giant Boulder of Death, intrigued me right away.

Giant Boulder of Death by PikPok
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

The makers of the Erasure-loving endless runner Robot Unicorn Attack series have moved the camera around to the back to create an “endless roller” of sorts in which players control a giant boulder on a mission of revenge.

The plot — yes, there is one — is that the denizens of the village below the boulder’s mountain have stolen his girlfriend (a slightly smaller boulder with a bow) and used “her” to make a statue of their local military hero. Boulder immediately swears vendetta, freeing himself from the mountaintop on which he is precariously perched and setting off on a rampage of rolling crushery.

It’s pretty much as fun as it sounds.

Free-To-Play Zombies Ate My Friends Is Surprisingly Fun In Short Shotgun Bursts [Review]

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Zombies Ate My Friends

Glu Games (Gun Bros, Contract Killer, Death Dome) has a certain reputation for violent free to play games, but the San Francisco-based developer has quite a variety of game genres to its credit, including fantasy and city-building games.

Zombies Ate My Friends by Glu Games, Inc.
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

Zombies Ate My Friends is another free to play game, sure, but it has a charm about it that helps cynics like me look the other way when it comes to the typical mechanics associated with the business model. The artwork is pleasing to the eye and there is a sense of whimsy to every aspect of the game, from dialog to undead-smashing weaponry (there’s a ukulele!), that elevates Zombies Ate My Friends from “yet another cash grab” to “worth a download and your valuable time.”

Free-To-Play Battle Dragons Soars Over To The App Store

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https://youtu.be/jRAwf_pLgjg

After releasing on Android this past July, Battle Dragons from Spacetime Games has been doing pretty well, but interested iOS gamers have been out of luck.

Today that changes, as the free-to-play build and battle game comes to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch in the App store. It does look quite a bit like Clash of Clans, another highly successful free-to-play game from Supercell, but Gary Gattis, CEO of Spacetime Games, says that may just be an artifact of the trailer.

Free To Play Gold Diggers Is An Endless Runner With A Steep Difficulty Curve [Review]

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Gold Diggers is a new take on the endless runner theme, the vertical runner. In it, players are placed at the head of a three-car mining train that actually digs straight down into the earth, picking up gold nuggets and avoiding things like flaming platforms, giant sand worms, and the more run-of-the-mill rocks and walls.

Gold Diggers by Gamistry
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

Players move the endlessly descending drilling mine train back and forth across the screen by dragging a finger left or right along the bottom of the screen, where a virtual button sits. The action occurs primarily through avoiding obstacles and chasing down gold nuggets — which can be spent in the game’s store for upgrades and better equipment — as well as power ups that add extra time, distance, or guns to the front of the player’s mine train.

Delightfully Simple Rise Alarm Clock Is Apple’s App Of The Week

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8am_CloseUp_Set

Apple names a new and noteworthy app each week as its App of the Week. This week, it’s Simplebot’s Rise Alarm Clock, a universal alarm clock that’s getting quite a bit of buzz in the tech sector.

Let’s face it, alarm clocks are a dime nickel a dozen, so it’s ironic to see one hit the top spot on the App Store. The app evokes another big buzz app, Clear: it’s well-designed, looks great, and works with simple swipes and taps; what’s not to love?

Innovative iOS Game ‘The Sandbox’ Updates With Cars, Advanced Contraptions, More

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The Sandbox Hit The Road

One of Apple’s Best Apps of 2012, Pixowl’s The Sandbox is a fantastically inventive mobile game that encourages players to create entire worlds and works of art, right on their iOS or Android devices. The Sandbox has reached five million downloads across app stores, and has over 300,000 unique worlds shared in its Online Gallery. That’s a lot of stuff, folks!

The new update for iOS today brings vehicles to the pixel-based world-building game, letting you carry yourself and crafting materials in a Truck from one place to another much faster. Or, if you’re of a combative turn of mind, grab a Tank or twelve and create a battle world to experiences the horrors of war, digitally.

There are new, more advanced contraptions as well, like Conveyor Belts and Multi Electro contraptions, letting you create and manage even more complicated machines and systems within your world.

‘The Drowning’ Launched Today, Brings A Whole New Level Of FPS Awesome To iOS

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Bad. Ass.
Bad. Ass.

Video games are often praised right out of the gate due to their amazing graphical fidelity and smooth animation. A less visible but equally important feature of any game, especially in the realm of first-person shooters, is the control scheme.

DeNA / Mobage’s The Drowning, out today as a universal iOS app, has seemingly nailed both of these things in a game that’s taking the iOS gaming world by storm. And perhaps shotgun.