So you’re a college student, and you need to buy the perfect computer for your 4 years of higher education. What will you go with? Mac or PC? Apple or Dell? Shiny, clean design, or cheap and fast?

When I was in college I went with the PC – it’s what I grew up with, what I was familiar with. But I had an iPod, an iPhone and any other Apple gadget I could get my hands on, and I lusted after all the coffee shop lurkers that had their Macs out in front of them doing work. But that doesn’t mean that Apple products don’t have their downsides.

The most obvious one? Cost. The base price of the Apple desktop is over $2,000. For that price you could get the one of the fastest PC’s on the market and probably a few additional screens if you’re a multi-tasker (or a gamer).

At the same time – Macs have only recently begun gaining market share, which means that most viruses are built and geared towards PC. So while getting a Mac does not mean you’re insulated from all viruses, it’s much less likely, and therefore, it’s less likely that you’ll get the (mac version of the) blue screen of death. Which is always one of the worst moments in the world, when you realize your entire life, for some people, is completely wiped. My advice – always back up your hard drive. Just do it.

Yet for the additional cost that you’re forking over for an Apple branded product, you’re getting the support and the culture of the Apple brand as well as the shiny, clean design. I’m a sucker for design – if you didn’t have any idea. Even with the recent resignation of Steve Jobs, the Apple culture (or cult, depending on how you look at the situation) will continue to go strong. Look at how quickly iPods became the norm, and became synonyms for ‘mp3 player’ in the general public of the US. And look how quickly iPads are taking over the tablet market. And see how quickly rumors spread about new Apple products.

The cult of Mac isn’t going anywhere soon – and with it you get a whole crowd of enthusiastic peers – and the great service of Apple employees. Does Dell have a Genius Bar? Nope. Another one of the big sellers for Apple branded products is the OS. As of September 2011, the OS is Lion – very clean and intuitive, and the multi-gesture trackpad on laptops seems like something out of a future movie like I, Robot or Minority Report. Though you can install the OS on non-Apple branded computers, and you can install the Windows system on a Mac, honestly, who would want to do either of those? With the former, you’d lose the clean lines of Apple design and the immediate envy that rises in your friend when they see that glowing apple on the front of your computer, and with the latter you’d lose the intuitive nature of the Mac OS. Either way, somehow, you lose. Either go full out Mac or go full out PC.

There’s no room on the fence when it comes to computers, at least not in today’s world. But my opinion. Take your money and go to your nearest Apple store. Especially as a young college student, you’ll earn the jealous stares of your colleagues and you can be very well protected – if you pick up an Apple Care protection plan your computer will be safe no matter what happens to it. Cherish your shiny Mac, laptop or desktop. Join the cult.

Alice Sweeny is a freelance writer who works with a federal credit union albany ny – finances and money has been something that fascinates her, though she will splurge every once in a while on that gadget she absolutely needs to have.

Read the answer to many intriguing questions in the free “Riddles” application for the iPhone. Hours of intelligent and, at times hilarious, fun can be perused with swipes on the screen.

“A certain crime is punishable if attempted but not punishable if committed. What is it? –babblingbrooke

“Answer: suicide.”

This composition of millions of riddles is clever and diverse; there are short riddles, long riddles, funny ones, dramatic ones and, of course, awful ones. Riddles randomly appear on the iPhone upon opening, and the user can choose to see the answer to the provocative query, or push to go to the next one.

There is also a rating at the bottom of the screen that gives a number to those who voted for thumbs up or down for each particular riddle. If the user pushes either hand then the vote is recorded and informs them that they have successfully done so, and then the App instantly brings up the next bright quip.

The only detriment to the “Riddles” App is this: Upon opening, the application gives you a pop-up window asking if the user would like to: “Download Weird Laws For FREE!!!” Though harmless, this is annoying and an abnormal addition to an iPhone App, which could have been done without. “Riddles” is great, so for constant users I might just download the other damn App too, just to shut it up!

IMPULSIVE Review Grade: B+

The car soaring along on the German highway, with no speed limit, is only doing 81 mph when it shows the red needle pointing to 130 km/hr. This means that a user is free to then put the iPhone down and floor it!

Sorry the “GlobeConvert” application cannot make the U.S. currency worth anymore than it actually is. On January 12, 2010 the U.S. Dollar is worth 0.67 Euro. Put in the exact amount of dollars to convert what is in the wallet to what will be used in London, England: the spender’s $1165 U.S. currency is instantly shown to be equal to 781.72 Euro.

Take the currency and units of measurement from whatever location you are in and convert them to whatever you need for free. There are hundreds of different types of easily recognizable measurements in an easy to use format. Simply press to change the Currency converter to Energy, or Length, or Speed, or Temperature, or even Time conversion.

Just how many seconds are in a year? The answer is 31557600 seconds/year. How many of them have been wasted playing with exceedingly easy, brilliant and intuitive Apps on the iPhone? Quite a lot actually, but the time wasted playing is outweighed by the time saved converting things with “GlobeConvert.”

IMPULSIVE Review Grade: A+

In the movie “Back to the Future Part 2,” Doc Brown complains about the 21st century’s mail, but not the weather service. He knows to the minute when the rain is going to stop, and it can now be determined that the crazy-haired scientist’s knowledge came from an iPhone’s “Weather Channel” App!

The “Weather Channel” App is directly from the world-famous TV news source, the Weather Channel, one of the premier forces in determining up to the second predictions of sun, snow, global warming and everything in between.

The application is one of the App Store’s perennial Top 50 Free Downloads, because its pinpoint accuracy cannot be beat.

Firing up the program, it automatically determines one’s location, and the App then asks to save the location as a favorite for quick access to that specific town in case one should change location. This feature is extremely convenient as anyone in a place with a diverse range of different weather situations, especially New York, can tell if it will be snowing at home, raining at work, hailing on the way to and from work and icing up when one visits the never-sleeping city later that night.

The App displays the Current weather, the Hourly weather, the 36 Hour forecast and the 10-Day forecast. In every look there are vital details that the iPhone’s Weather application does not have, like not only the temperature of 28 degrees, but what it Feels Like at 16 degrees; it also shows the Wind, Humidity, UV Index, Dew Point, Visibility, Sunrise, Sunset and even the full radar map for each forecast!

IMPULSIVE Review Grade: A+

Aside from creating a physical camera tripod, dubbed the Gorillamobile, specifically to harness the iPhone, the professional photography inventors have come up with an application that drastically improves the features and capabilities of the already brilliant camera in the iPhone.

With “Gorillacam” a user can take advantage of the “Press Anywhere” feature, which allows for the entire iPhone’s screen to become a shutter button. How does one take self-portraits or proper group shots without the great customizable “Self-timer” that even provides an audible countdown to the picture taking?

This App is easy to use and gives anyone who likes to take pictures, amateur and professional alike, an essential upgrade to the portable iPhone’s camera, which is used all too often in place of a digital camera, because it is always in one’s pocket, ready to go.

The “Gorillacam” App also maxes out the potential of the iPhone camera with a “Continuous Rapid-fire” weapon which wields the ability to take unlimited photos, up to 1.6 frames per second, by pressing and holding the shutter on the screen. There are tons of features included with this remarkable free application. It is a must have!

Grade: A+

In order to fight off the ruthless hugging armies Oliver uses his rifle and crossbow to blast off the horrid pink heads, spilling their rainbow blood. The player fortifies himself behind sandbags and resumes a position taking down the enemy as they make their approach over the surrounding hills.

This game is a must have! The sound, visuals and gameplay offer a “Call of Duty”-like experience. The command center even radios in orders to stay put and vanquish the Huggable Bears, before an extract point can be made to get Oliver out of enemy territory. Before he can leave, the colossal bears, varying in size and numbers, must all be destroyed; this feat then unlocks new weapons, like bazookas and chainsaws.

When the music blares and the onslaught of dozens of humorous pink bears get close, Oliver can tap the screen to aim with one thumb and tap the screen again with the player’s other thumb to easily send piles of bodies flying through the air in the nick of time.

Grade: A

[Visit to Download "Battle Bears" On Sale]

Well that’s New York, and its useful, necessary and intricate underground train system, the subway, is a mystery to tourists, and at times, a hazard to locals that have to travel the city’s evolved horse and buggy system, and attempt to catch the right train at the right time.

Welcome the NYC “KickMap” application, which has now become a necessary component in subway travel throughout the boroughs in and surrounding the greater Manhattan area. The NYC “KickMap” Lite App for the iPhone is free, and displays an entire zoomable subway map, that does not require internet, as in the dungeons even the fastest 3G internet connection can lapse.

The reputable “KickMap” App has been featured by The New York Times, and in this application every single subway line, stop and connecting train is shown. The innovative design screams touch-screen glory, as you can scroll, zoom, pinch, and peruse this program as if it were Google Maps on the iPhone: it is easy, detailed, and clear.

For a couple of dollars there is also the “24 Hour KickMap” version of the App, which shows the night service cutbacks of the trains in an additional NIGHT map, and it also has a built-in compass within the map itself to orient you to exactly which side of the train tracks you should be on!

Grade: A [iTunes link]

Somehow the U.S. government has accidentally fired and lost all of the earth’s cows; the source of tasty burgers and filet mignon steaks are all encapsulated in oxygen bubbles keeping them temporarily alive in the harsh anti-climate of space.

This mooing application for the iPhone is a hit, because of the humor surrounding the shocking premise, and the fact that the game is incredibly fun, engaging and difficult.

The concept is simple enough: bounce teleportation bubbles into the cows, or hit the flailing hunks of beef into the teleport devices to transport the animals safely to earth’s viable meat market. Each space gun has a limited number of shots, however, meaning that players have to strategically choose which way to try and ricochet cows and bubbles alike.

The graphics, sound and playability are all up to par in the “Cows in Space” game, which is created by Donut Games, the company famous for its “Garbage Pail Kids” Apps for Apple.

The App gives a hilariously pertinent piece of advice as well: “Tip: Cows are fragile…” Who would have known that cows floating around in the vacuum of space, in transparent bubbles, would be at risk? Puzzles emerge as the lost cows crowd the phone’s screen mooing to be saved by a white knight in a butcher’s coat!

Grade: A

Though it may appear harmless, or possibly even potentially entertaining to fans of the rap star, 50 cent, there can be no doubt that this App is a waste of one megabyte on the precious iPhone’s memory; it is also a terrible expenditure of energy, in moving one’s thumb onto the surface to click and open this abomination.

In a purely profit seeking move, as a result of “vitaminwater” and 50, anyone, and not just all of the music engineers and producers out there, can remix 50’s new song “Baby By Me.” The song is sure to flop harder than my cousin Terry leaping in a fat-roll-gyrating cannonball that delves into the deep-end of the swimming pool. That said the free App is just a little self-promotional.

The graphics are subliminal as they say, “We mix the vitamins, you mix the beats.” Did I mention that “vitaminwater” is helping 50 cent with this one; the man’s ugly baldhead grimaces at you from this App, as though he were constipated. Sorry not the image I want to play anything by, and especially a terrible semblance of a game or App!

IMPULSIVE REVIEW Grade: F

50 cent's Terrible App

Free from the Apple Store is the Star Wars “Lightsaber” application. Boot up the epic program and pick from Darth Vader, the evil Maris Brood, the Apprentice from the game “Star Wars: Force Unleashed,” Rahm Kota, the Jedi Shaak Ti, or a customizable Jedi which you can create yourself.

Choosing Darth Vader, the screen displays his helmet on a space background, and his personal Lightsaber rests there also. Clicking on the music notes at the bottom of the screen streams the epic background tunes of the fierce saber battles from George Lucas’ movies!

Clicking on the Lightsaber then covers the screen in the saber’s red beam, which hums like the real thing! Swing your iPhone like a Lightsaber, and simulated crashing sounds collide, as if the player was really swinging a Lightsaber around.

Though there is not much of a game to the Star Wars “Lightsaber” App, it is still a lot of fun to customize and make a personal Lightsaber for one’s dog, who will ultimately reject the Dark Side of the Force with a bark and a luminescent aquamarine-blue Lightsaber!

Grade: A

If seafood is a part of the every day, every other day, every week, or every year’s diet, than the “Seafood Watch” App is an absolute must have. The application is free for the iPhone, and makes purchasing and eating food from the sea a whole lot easier!

For those who have been disappointed with the flounder that was brought to the plate looking a little like an oil spill, “Seafood Watch” helps to insure a tasty and healthy meal. Upon opening the App it locates the user’s location to determine the best seafood available in the area. Then an entire list of every seafood imaginable is alphabetized, and can be looked at as easily as scrolling through the Contact list in the iPhone.

Each fish, crab, lobster is given in detail, including where they were bred or caught which is essential in getting healthy tasty specimens not full of iodine, or worse. The App also says which Chilean sea bass is an endangered species, or which flat fish are becoming endangered (because of the long amount of time it takes them to mature). The premature fish is not necessarily always a tasty fish either.

“Seafood Watch” is a unique guide to being a responsible, healthy and satisfied seafood customer. There is also a button to press to switch the guide to sushi for another amazing insight listing.

Grade: A

Immerse the iPhone in a 3-D overhead view of a farm bordered by woods and two clearings. The player is given money to build defense towers just in case aliens were to land in the two clearings and invade the farm with various forms of gigantic bugs and beings.

There are countless different towers to build and they all have very fun and very specific weapons systems that will disarm, flying, or grounded aliens. As the body count grows, the player earns more money (possibly selling alien bodies to the government) to build yet more towers, as the frenzied attack gets more and more intense.

Keeping the sheep from being abducted will continue to unlock more towers with necessary defense armaments as a clock ticks down, and the U.F.O.’s continue to swarm the forest clearings. The path of the aliens is displayed and towers are built along that path to dispel the kidnappers with the flick of a thumb. The game is point and touch, and the gameplay is simple, but addictive fun.

Grade: A

TowerMadness

The free application for the iPhone provides the time, distance to and even the view of the moon for over 6000 cities worldwide! The “City Time” App is only $.99 for the full version, which does not exclude capitol cities, and does exclude advertising. The “Lite” version is not to be ignored, however. It gets the job done.

When one has to get back to the heated New York to London digital messaging, the time has to be known; otherwise the little English night owl might be asleep, or busy doing something… Simply swipe a thumb to view the time in California, England, China, or any other region she may reside in.

If one would like to impress the ladies of Machester, U.K. one can use “City Time” to tell them about the crescent moon appearing overhead in their view of the sky, across the vast Atlantic Ocean!

Grade: B+

An engineered gravity is in place, and triangles, circles, squares, and other strange non-symmetrical shapes are picked up with one’s thumb and placed on the fixed geometric shapes below the dotted line. Placing a circle on a triangle’s edge that is angled down, and the circle will fall down the slope and off the screen, or imaginary ledge.

The object of “Perfect Balance: Lost Trials” is simple: place all of the shapes below the dotted line without any falling off of the screen, as the suspenseful daredevil music thrills, like a horror movie bordering on a splatter of the fallen.

There is a free version of “Perfect Balance: Lost Trials” App and a Gold version for $.99. This game is an extraordinarily challenging one that can become addictive in a very little amount of sand falling down the hourglass. Fighting gravity is a very real predicament that is not easily overcome in real life, or in the balance of this game!

Grade: A-

Perfect Balance: Lost Trials

The revolutionary sound system has arrived! It has a name, it has a subwoofer, it has tweeters, it has wireless-integrated technology, it has superior sound, it has pure qualitative quality: it is the Sonos “ZonePlayer S5” music system.

In an age that has adopted digital music, the Sonos “ZonePlayer S5” cannot be overlooked, or go unheard! Sonos makes listening to digital music simple. For a party, turn on the “ZonePlayer S5,” and control the swinging songs via an iPhone or computer that is safely stashed away from the swaying party dancers and the clumsy fraternizers.

Sonos seems to bring to its company many of the amazing attributes that have made Apple so successful over the decades, minimalist design, functionality, quality, innovative technology and intuitiveness. As one opens the “ZonePlayer S5” packaging, that same mystique surrounding the minimal but attractive packaging of any Mac product takes over…yet it’s a Sonos.

The music player is sleek and small measuring less than nine inches tall, less than 15 inches wide and less than five inches from front to back; it fits almost anywhere. The “ZonePlayer S5” is a shining silvery gray, reminiscent of MacBook Pros and iMacs, and the minimalist design echoes the distinctive speaker set-up within, which contains five speakers: two tweeters, two speakers and a subwoofer.

There is no need to hook up a mp3 player or iPod to the Sonos music system, because the Sonos integrated program, for Mac’s and Pc’s, will allow a listener to access any music folder that is on a computer network, or iPhone. Simply install the software and plug in either a “ZonePlayer S5,” or a Sonos “ZoneBridge” to a router via an Ethernet cable (which is provided). The software disc quickly logs a user into the network and projects the listener’s music to the “ZonePlayer S5” (which is also backwards compatible with all Sonos products).

Once the “Sonos Controller” App is downloaded for free in the Apple Store, the iPhone, or iPod Touch, becomes a customizable remote control. One can access all of the music from the network, make play-lists, tweet their friends, change the volume, or access Internet radio from the palm of the hand (all of this can be done from a computer also).

Sign in to Pandora Radio, and listen to high quality customized radio stations for free on the Sonos “ZonePlayer S5” seamlessly. The Sonos Player is preprogrammed with Pandora Radio, and the album art from Eric Clapton’s “After Midnight Live” album will leap onto a display, along with the song title, song length, artist, and Pandora radio station name.

As a recommendation, the Sonos “ZoneBridge” is a near necessity to have with the “ZonePlayer S5,” as it allows one to take the player anywhere. The tiny four inch square device, the Sonos “ZoneBridge,” is an additional $99, and without it there has to be at least one S5 player hooked up to an Ethernet cable from a router (essentially keeping the player by the router); the entire Sonos system is based on this wireless technology. Though it might seem a drawback, with a single “ZoneBridge” in place, all of the actual players are then free to roam anywhere there is space and an open outlet.

The extraordinary tunes that soar from this unique surround-sound-like device cannot be put into words. The Sonos engineers put all of the necessary home audio components into a single cabinet design with the “ZonePlayer S5” and the result is a home run! The music sings, as though Sonos wishes to battle with Bose for speaker superiority, for the S5 has outstanding sound that stuns.

Where one player is a must have, two or more “ZonePlayer S5” devices is an effective way to provide top-notch audio throughout the home, without the mess of speaker wires, audio components, or even audio cables, because its completely wireless. It is true that the Sonos “ZonePlayer S5” is a bit pricey, retailing at $399, but this pays back tenfold once it is up and running, five minutes after opening the box. It is of the highest quality sound, and if one has a family, or multiple spaces where different music needs to play then multiple S5’s will truly provide a priceless experience.

When the Sonos “ZonePlayer S5” is in multiple rooms, then any iPhone or computer logged in to the Sonos devices can access all of the vast treasures of music and Internet radio. One can control the volume and songs of each room, individually, so go ahead and control an entire house, castle, mansion, or backyard with the palm of a hand!

Grade: A

The physics puzzle game appeals to a certain taste, as one must smartly choose which flick of a thumb will send the cartoon bear on a path to shred its body as much as possible; if a hidden desire to toss virtual rag-dolls to utter ruin exists, then this is an ideal App to buy for $.99.

The game requires some skill, and is not as intuitive as one might assume, given the circumstances: swatting a thumb to pull the bear-doll a certain way to try and achieve points given for the most damage inflicted.

The level objectives include decapitation and total dismemberment, and the instructions say that the “more damage you cause the more fun you’ll unlock,” yet the game can be hard to succeed in.

“iDropDead FE” stands for iDropDead Flower Edition: the people at Apple did not allow the dolls to bleed, so the programmers altered the game so that the bears bleed flowers as morbid circus music rolls on. Choose which hill, maiming ledges, steps and pendulums to send the rag-dolls to, and loose your head.

Grade: B-/C+

iDropDead FE

Soon to be a #1 seller in Apple’s App Store, “Boxed In 2” is an amazing array of everyone’s favorite box-moving robot at work again with improved graphics combined with some incredibly catchy background music. There are now sound effects, epic tunes and more mystical mazes than ever.

Get the robot through the red portal to enter the next diabolical maze full of impeding crates. The little robot player now raises arms, as one hears gears cranking; the sound effects add a surrealistic element to a game that was already addictive.

This game was designed specifically with iPod and iPhone users in mind, and with a swipe of a thumb numerous hours of gameplay greet the robot/box lovers. The added 50 levels of this version of the game are all more difficult than the previous game’s 50 levels meaning that the goodness is near impossible to beat, and therefore the fun does not end.

If you like easy to play, yet challenging puzzle games “Boxed In 2” is the best of the best. Simply move boxes to get the robot out of the maze; such simplicity is so very awesome!

Grade: A

Boxed In 2

NASA App

The Mars Odyssey has been exploring the red planet for 3129 Days, 05 Hours, 57 Minutes, 28 Seconds…30 seconds…32 seconds. On the “NASA” App, one can easily view an in-depth description of the orbiter that is part of a “long-term effort of robotic exploration.”

In the free “NASA” application, the NASA program powers an iPhone-sized look into all of the United State’s space missions. View images of the Mars surface from the App, or peruse the translucent rings of Saturn and the icy satellites of the Milky Way planets.

Fly on the Space Shuttle section, as “the most complex machine ever built… [was] instrumental in building the International Space Station” beams down to the mobile phone screen in high quality video, streaming from NASA. There are also news updates, links and emails to contact NASA, as if gray-faced googly-eyed aliens have landed.

The “NASA” App is a gorgeous display providing intriguing, concise and comprehensive information regarding the massive space force that is NASA. It might not be Star Wars, but the “Force is with” this one!

Grade: A

The free version of the application provides a limited array of vehicles to start, VW hatchbacks, but the detail of the cars and the tracks is breathtaking. The game is played with the iPhone sideways and used as a spur-of-the-moment steering wheel of sorts; it is simple and works quite well.

The gameplay is fantastic and fun, as the player steers a speeding rubber burning cruiser through a variety of road courses designed to throw the vehicle into sharp explosive turns. Crashes and broken glass all but come through the iPhone screen and into one’s lap!

The acceleration, shifting and braking are left to the computer, as the default, so that a player merely has to concentrate on the steering of the roaring racecar that is scraping steel fenders down the track. This App makes for an interesting addition to any bank line that has crept up and kidnapped one’s time from the life’s hourglass; do not think beyond turning and hurling to victory!

Grade: B+

R. Racing GTI App