It had been coming all along, but finally, Skype 2.0 for iPhone is here. The new Skype 2.0 has the ability to make calls over 3G networks. However, the down side is that Skype is offering free Skype-to-Skype calls over the 3G network only till August 2010 after which a fee will be charged. Normal Skype-to-Skype calls remain free though.

Other enhancements include improved sound quality using wideband audio (SLIK codec) on iPhone 3GS and 2nd generation iPod Touch. A call quality indicator has also been added to notify users. Also, startup times for Skype have been improved with fast access to Skype dial pad from iPhone home screen.

Despite the improvements, Skype 2.0 has a major drawback: lack of full iPad support. Although full iPad support is expected to arrive soon, it may prevent many from upgrading to Skype 2.0 and wait for the next major update which offers complete iPad support. However, for iPhone and iTouch users, Skype 2.0 is a must have upgrade.

We must say that this release definitely has some prominent updates and we recommend you to subscribe here at Smashingapps so that we can notify you of the next Skype version with full support for iPad.

Brought To You By

Do you want to advertise here? Click to get more info…

One of the most unique and common forms of art on the Internet these days is called concept art. Concept art is a form of illustration where main goal is to convey a visual representation of the design before putting it into the final product. In this post, we have collected some eye popping examples of concept art that will surely inspire you and give your imagination a boost. Most of these are created with Photoshop. So let’s have a look at these excellent examples of concept art.

If you want to share more concept artworks so please comment about them below. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.

Toy Concept Art 01

Concept Art

Selma

Spectacular2d-”dragon Crash”

Agen Of The Swarm

Attack

The OBSERVATORY

The Octopus World

Rey city

Concept Monster

Gardien

Lost Day

Concept Art

Tomorrow after yesterday

Sky Castle

Female mecha

Jannisery Concept Illustration

No Monster

Once in the woods

Brilliant

First Lesson

Concept art

Liberty Prison Comic Poster

The Sentinel

Truce

Creature of the Oasis

Thoughts

Roughneck Rabbit Mutated

Concept Art

Bad Day

Concep Art

God of War 2 Marketing Illustration

Cyclamen

Chimera

God of War 2 Demo Game Cover Art

Sand Dragon

la cima

Apis

Concept Art

Frigate

Brought To You By

Do you want to advertise here? Click to get more info…

If you are an Opera user who has not familiarized himself with its widgets, you are missing the best Opera has to offer.

Opera has gone with a completely different direction with its widgets. Unlike Chrome’s extensions or Firefox’s addons that need the browser to function, Opera’s widgets are standalone applications that can be executed without even opening the browser. They can sit neatly on your desktop and can serve a multitude of functions.

One the more fun Opera widgets I recently discovered is Artist’s Sketchbook. It lets you easily draw simple pieces with some great sketching tools.

This is what Artist’s Sketchbook looks like when first opened:

Color choosers are on the bottom of the widget. If you want to choose a custom color, you can click on the circular icon top pop up something like this:

This color mixer helps you get any color you want. The right pane lets you choose a sketching tool.

You can choose from an H or 2B pencil or a paintbrush, pen, sprayer, or marker. Options for an eraser, paint bucket, and image pasting are also available in this pane. The last four buttons in the right pane let you save your work.

Options of the widget let you choose the default language and canvas type, along with modifying other options.

With these basic tools, users can create quite impressive works, depending on their artistic ability.

Installation note for Artist’s Sketchbook : After you click on the “Launch” button on Artist’s Sketchbook’s webpage and install it, you can launch it from Opera’s widgets sidebar. Alternatively you can access it from the new shortcut placed either on your desktop or in your Start menu (depending on where your Opera shortcut is).

Brought To You By

Do you want to advertise here? Click to get more info…

The most fun way to use image manipulation technology is by using it on our own photographs. Morphing our photos can produce some very amusing results which will surely entertain us. Many websites offer image manipulation services. For you all I have gathered a list of 9 such entertaining website that let us have fun with our images. Check out each entry in the list and you will definitely find something that will manipulate photos to achieve amusing results.

If you want to share more entertaining and cool websites to have fun with photos so please comment about them below. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.

PhotoFunia

PhotoFunia is another effect-adding website to add interesting and humorous effects to our photos. Visit PhotoFunia.

In20Years

In20years is a free to use website. Its purpose is to estimate what a person’s face will look like 20 or 30 years in the future. We can also choose to add the ‘drug addict’ effect for funnier results. Visit In20Years.

GetGrossedOut

GetGrossedOut is another free website, although its aim it quite different from in20years. With GetGrossedOut, visitors can upload their photos for the site to add disgusting effects to them. These disgusting effects are not ‘actually’ disgusting, since they are visibly cartoonish. Still, we can have a lot of fun with our photos. (Our pictures have the site’s logo on them.) Visit GetGrossedOut.

Fotobabble

With Fotobabble, we can upload our images and record audio with them. Each ‘fotobabble’ consists of an uploaded picture and our recorded audio. We can then share the fotobabble’s URL with our friends so they can view and hear what we have to share. Visit Fotobabble.

MagMyPic

MagMyPic will add a magazine-like look to our pictures. We upload our picture and the site puts it on a virtual magazine cover. Results look real and can easily fool our friends. Just remember to upload a high quality photo so it looks even more authentic. Visit MagMyPic.

Citrify

Citrify does not contain many humorous features, although it does let users to add very interesting effects to their photos which (at times) can be hilarious. The image above, for instance, got the “hulk” effect. Visit Citrify.

TiltShift Generator

As the name suggests, this site is a wonderful to add tiltshift effect to our pictures. In case you do not know what this is, tiltshift is the technique to have on a portion of the photo in focus thus drawing the attention there. It can be humorous if we are pointing out the humorous part of a picture by bringing it in focus. Visit TiltShift Generator.

SuperLame Word Balloon Engine

SuperLame Word Balloon Engine provides its visitors with a simple interface to add nice speech bubbles to their images. We can change the font of the text as well as the shape of the speech bubbles. Visit SuperLame Word Balloon Engine.

Wanokoto Labs for Old Images Effect

The last entry in my list is a website in Japanese. The site adds an ‘old’ effect to our photos. I had to make up its name from what I could gather from the URL. But even without knowing the language, figuring out what the site does and how it does it is quite easy. The controls can be recognized through their icons. Visit Old Picture Effect Creator.

Brought To You By

Do you want to advertise here? Click to get more info…

Even if you have countless apps already on your iPhone, you are still looking for the next best application out there. That is exactly what makes the iPhone so enjoyable – endless great applications waiting to be discovered. Below you will find a list of 10 great free iPhone applications that I have gathered. All of them are must-have apps to realize your phone’s true potential. Give each one a try.

If you want to share more useful apps for daily life usage so please comment about them below. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.

Skype for iPhone

Skype is the most popular VoIP client. It lets you make free Skype-to-Skype phone calls. After installing this application on your iPhone you will be able to talk for hours with friends on Skype. The rates to make international calls and send international text messages are also quite economical.

Hey Where Are You

TechCrunch named this application one of the best iPhone apps of 2009. Hey Where Are You serves the important purpose of finding your geographical location. You can also find the location of any other friend or family member who owns an iPhone. This app is a great tool to help you out when you are lost or to find out where your friends are.

Evernote

Evernote is your personal notepad that stores a lot more than just notes. You can take notes down in the form of text, pictures, and voice messages. The application syncs your data to your computer seamlessly. People who need a tool to note down things they do not want to forget will find Evernote a great solution.

Flashlight

While some cellphones have a built in flashlight, the iPhone does not. A flashlight can be extremely helpful in dark places e.g. when you are trying to find something under the seat of your car. Flashlight is a wonderful iPhone application that fills the screen with white light; resultantly the iPhone acts as a flashlight. You can vary the screen color to get fun effects with your flashlight.

Wi-Fi Finder

This app for iPhone has tremendous use. Instead of shaking your phone to discover a good Wi-Fi signal, you can Wi-Fi Finder to find many free and paid Wi-Fi hotspots. The app has indexed over 280,000 locations in 140 countries worldwide.

Photoshop.com Mobile

If you transfer your iPhone photos to your computer for editing, then you will definitely find this app to be useful. With Photoshop.com Mobile you can make important edits to your photographs. Common tasks such as Crop and Rotate can be performed through simple gestures.

TweetMic Lite

This app’s introduction describes it perfectly: “TweetMic Lite is a simple and intuitive Twitter client app that allows you to make high-quality audio recordings or “Tweetcasts” and publish them directly to Twitter. There is no limit to how much you can record and you don’t need to sign up for any additional service to start using TweetMic.” Twitter addicts cannot afford to miss this app.

All-in-1 Games by PlayMesh

Instead of installing different apps for each game you want to play, you can get All-in-1 Games to get a great little games package. The games include reverse, checkers, chess, tic-tac-toe, and many others. The games are multiplayer ones and are played online.

PAC-MAN Lite

You can now enjoy the classic game on iPhone. The iPhone version comes with all the original elements of the game and is as enjoyable as ever. A lever at the bottom of the screen is what gives players control over Pac Man’s motion.

Messagey! Unlimited SMS

Just like Skype offers unlimited calls, Messagey offers unlimited text messaging. Users can text to any number in the US. There are numerous interface customizations that make Messagey a great app to have.

Brought To You By

Do you want to advertise here? Click to get more info…

SSuite Office – CleverNote PIM is a personal information
manager that will keep you up to speed and informed
at all times. Available Features include: A very useful
calendar diary to view all your appointments. An address
book to keep all your contacts in one place. (in Business and Productivity)

Ashampoo ClipFinder HD gives you web video the way
it should be. Search in up to fifteen video portals
at once or in selected portals, view videos directly
and convert and save them to your hard disk with a
single click. Nothing makes finding, viewing, saving
and managing web videos easier. (in Internet)

BitNami RubyStack greatly simplifies the development
and deployment of Ruby on Rails applications. It includes
ready-to-run versions of Apache, MySQL, Ruby and Rails
and required dependencies. It can be deployed using
a native installer, as a virtual machine or in the
cloud. (in Internet)

FootPrint is a simple, basic program for calculating
and comparing hash files. It can calculate the hash
for MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, and SHA512 of a file
and compare it with a known hash value. (in System Utilities)

Ogni Folder Locker & Hider is a powerful free tool
for home or commercial use for locking and hiding any
folder in Windows to ensure the security of its contents
from other users. (in System Utilities)