The official iPhone SDK has always been exclusive to Mac osx operating systems with very few exceptions. Options for Windows users include programming Actionscript applications with Adobe CS5, and developement with web applications for Safari. Both of which are very limited and can't be submitted to Apple.

DragonFireSDK is a new solution which enables developers to code applications using Windows Visual C++. This application lets you code in C or C++ as opposed to in Objective-C on the official development kit. Once completed, your project will automatically be converted to Objective-C, then submitted to the App-Store through the DragonFire Distribution Portal, or through your own developer account.

"UnStacker" is a free application created with the DragonFireSDK which is currently on the App-Store, if you would like to check out its capabilities. This development kit will cost $49.95 when released. However, if you intend to buy the software, beta copies are given away for free by requesting one from support@dragonfiresdk.com. Make sure you provide a good reason why you should have a copy though.

Official Website: DragonFireSDK

There is an endless supply of tools for us to utilize to grant ourselves more control over our keyboards through macro creation and profiles but the same cannot be said about mice. While you can often find powerful mouse customization software accompanying your mouse, you'll be hard pressed to find a suitable replacement if you don't want to use the included software or if you do not have the mouse that that specific software was designed for.

Whether you choose not to use the software that was made for your mouse because it is buggy or forces mouse acceleration on you, our latest Curious Finding: X-Mouse Button Control by Highresolution Enterprises will give you more control over your rodent without needing to have a special model. Although X-Mouse Button Control is a powerful program that is not resource intensive, it only has support for 5 mouse buttons, a scroll wheel and tilt functionality.

Still, if you're like me and use your mouse to begin transmitting on Mumble or Ventrilo or if you just want to disable your mouse's backwards and forwards buttons, then you'll want to grab this program to save yourself from a lot of headaches.

System Requirements: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 and Windows Vista, Windows 2008 and Windows 7. Both 32bit and 64bit. You will also need a mouse and driver that supports 5 buttons. NOTE: If your mouse has 5 buttons but the 4th and 5th buttons don't do anything in XP64 by default - this probably wont work for you.

License: X-Mouse Button Control is completely free.

Screenshot:

Download: [X-Mouse Button Control]

If you've already tried X-Mouse Button Control and know of a better alternative or need help using the program, please leave a comment.

When it comes to yelling at your teammates that you're being attacked and begging for cover, nothing brings your point across better than voice communication. Of course, most games come with good ol' text chat but having to stop defending yourself just to ask for help is sure to lose you the match or game. Although most games offer in-game voice communication, there are some modern games (like Shattered Horizon) that do not and, let's face it, the majority of the time the in-game voice quality is absolutely horrendous anyway. This is where today's Curious Finding Mumble comes in to save us from having to put up with robotic, static-filled conversation.

While Mumble isn't the first application to provide this functionality, it is arguably the program that does it best. Other voice communication (or VOIP) software like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak simply can't match the voice quality or the price of Mumble. When using Mumble I often find myself looking around to see where the person talking to me is standing, simply because it sounds like they are right there in the room with me. Whereas when using another voice communication application or in-game voice chat, I sometimes find it difficult to understand what people are saying because the voice quality isn't good or clear enough.

If you’re like me and you tend to wonder what things you have installed on your system or you want to take good care of your system, you’ll find yourself regularly looking at Add/Remove Programs to decide on what junk you can remove from your system.

When doing so, one thing will stick out like a sore thumb if you’ve been a good computer user and have been keeping your system up to date: multiple installations of different Java versions. Now, you could go and manually uninstall all the other Java versions – like I used to do – but why waste time?

Today’s Curious Finding makes that task as simple as clicking a few times. JavaRa by RaProducts allows you to easily remove older versions of Java and update your system to the latest version with a few clicks of your mouse.

RaProducts describes it best:

"JavaRa is a simple tool that does a simple job: it removes old and redundant versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Simply select “Check for Updates” or “Remove Older Version” to begin."

System Requirements: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista without UAC (although I can use it just fine with UAC).

License: JavaRa is completely free and open source.

Screenshot:

Download: [JavaRa]

With the advent of rich text formatting came the annoyance of having to deal with copying text with the formatting included. Usually, this isn't a problem but if you, say, use Microsoft Word to write-up articles and use WordPress's visual editor, then you'll see what I mean.

Whenever you copy text from Word to a WordPress visual editor, the formatting goes along with it. This usually results in oddly formatted articles because of a different font or colour that you use in Word and can be annoying to have to fix. In fact, it is so annoying that I usually just delete the whole article and re-paste it again, but this time I'll go through Notepad first: copy text from Word to Notepad then to WordPress - effectively removing all rich text formatting, as Notepad does not support it.

Or you also have the option of not using the Visual Editor and using the HTML editor instead. The problem with this is that quite a few plugins just aren't as cool when you use the boring old HTML editor. Not to forget that a lot of WordPress's - or any visual editor's - core functionality is really only realised through the use of the visual editor. Even more important is the fact that, for one example, when creating a link using the visual editor, it adds on key information that helps with SEO or standards compliance like a title for the link that would otherwise be omitted when using the HTML editor.

Up until now, I've opted to go the HTML editor route, switching to the visual editor when need be but this still proves to be annoying. Thankfully, there is an answer: PureText by Steve Miller.

In a nutshell, PureText automates the Word -> Notepad -> WordPress method and proves to be significantly less annoying. Once you've downloaded PureText and run it (no installation required), it'll add a system tray icon that can be clicked on to convert the current clipboard to pure text or right clicked on to get to the usual options menu. To happily become rich text formatting free, you simply hit the assigned hotkey (WIN + V by default) and it will convert the clipboard to pure text and paste it (if that's what you want it to do or you could just have the hotkey only convert the clipboard to pure text).

System Requirements: Windows 9x, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7. Both 32bit and 64bit.

License: PureText is completely free.

Download: [PureText]

Are you faced with the same annoyances? Let us know so I know I'm not suffering alone. Or maybe you know of a program that does this better? Leave a comment so we can hear about it!

Taskbar Shuffle is yet another program that provides a feature people would expect to come with Windows: reordering the taskbar. Luckily for some of us, Microsoft has realised just how useful allowing us to re-order the taskbar is and has provided it as a feature in their latest operating system (at the time of posting), Windows 7. But, for those of us still stuck in the pre-Windows 7 era, Taskbar Shuffle is truly a blessing.

If you’re an organization freak like me (at least when it comes to my computer…) then you’ll love this program. It brings browser-tab like functionality to your taskbar. If your programs are not opened in the right order, just click on one and drag and drop it to the right place. It is that simple.

That’s not all this program enables you to do though. You can also re-order your system tray icons by holding down ctrl (hotkey is configurable) and then clicking and dragging them wherever you want, close buttons with the middle mouse button and change the way your taskbar behaves.

Taskbar Shuffle adds a new icon to your system tray, but you can easily disable it in its settings.

Once you've had a chance to use Taskbar Shuffle and like what it has to offer, please consider donating to its developer Jay Elaraj to support his work.

System Requirements: Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista . Both 32bit and 64bit.

License: Taskbar Shuffle is completely free.

Download: [Taskbar Shuffle]

Already have Windows 7? Or already using Taskbar Shuffle? Let us know what you think about the new Windows 7 taskbar or Taskbar Shuffle in our comments.

People strive to improve on technology not only to expand our horizons but, more importantly, to develop ways to afford ourselves more control over the various things in our lives. With this in mind, is it not ironic when that same drive to advance our technology results in less control than we had before?

How many times have you tried to delete a file only to be told it’s in use?

When I was using Windows XP, I honestly lost count how many times a day I would encounter this error. Now that I'm on Windows 7 it's not as a persistent annoyance in my daily computing as it was before, but it still happens and when it does I am left completely in the dark; helpless - removed of any control over the situation. All the error tells me is that something went wrong. But just what went wrong? And what caused it? By default, on your general Windows installation you'll never know.

Enter our saviour: LockHunter by Crystal Rich LTD. LockHunter is an application that, among other things, tells you what process is preventing you from performing actions on a file. Once you know what program is holding your file hostage, LockHunter lets you unlock, rename, delete the file or even kill the kidnapping program - perfect for dealing with malicious software like viruses, for example.

Once you've had a chance to try out LockHunter and decide you like what it offers, I encourage you to consider donating to its developer to thank them for their hard work.

Note: I previously had a similar application called Unlocker labeled as a Curious Finding however found that it did not work with any 64bit operating system or Windows 7.

System Requirements: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7. Both 32bit and 64bit.

License: LockHunter is completely free.

Screenshot:

Download: [LockHunter]

Ubisoft has announced via a Twitter tweet that Assassin’s Creed 2 will not see the light of day on PC until early next year. While its console counterparts are still on for a November debut, the dev team felt more time was needed to “deliver the best quality game” on the Windows side of things.

The original also saw a late release on PC, so this development isn’t entirely surprising. With the influx of quality titles hitting all major platforms this holiday season, we’d wager a bet that most PC gamers will be busy enough to not mind waiting a couple more months for an improved product.

Assassin’s Creed 2 PC Pushed Back To 2010 - [eXophase.com]