With over 100,000 apps in the App Store, it’s not always easy to figure out what the best applications are. Besides, what’s best for me might not be best for you as we all have different needs.

One criteria that makes it easy to figure out if an app is good or not is the amount sold. The more it sells, the better it is, right? Apple recently came up with a list of those top best seller and top rated apps.

Games

• The Sims 3
• The Oregon Trail
• Need For Speed Undercover
• Madden NFL 10
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour
• Assassin’s Creed
• Flight Control – my favorite game
• Cooking Mama
• Civilization Revolution
• Wheel of Fortune
• Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor
• Real Racing
• Zenonia
• Ravensword: The Falle King
• Earth Vs Moon Episode 2
• Sally’s Spa
• Ragdoll Blaster
• Canabait
• Blades of Fury
• DOOM Classic

Apps

• MobileNavigator North America
• MLB.com At Bat
• Textfree Unlimited
• TomTom US & Canada – I have this but I mostly use Google Maps
• Golfshot: Golf GPS
• SlingPlayer Mobile
• ColorSplash
• Pocket God
• Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite
• The Moron Test
• ReelDirector
• Magellan RoadMate 2010 North America
• Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute Meals
• I Am T-Pain – I think this app is useless
• CBS Sports
• SketchBook Mobile
• Star Walk – one of my favorite apps
• Convertbot
• Leaf Trombone
• Pano

Which of these apps do you own?

The rules of social networking may be fluid, but there are still virtual faux pas galore. Mark Suster at Both Sides of the Table offers tailored tips on the best ways to build relationships on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The New York Times has given some online love to Mark Anderson, the influential writer of the Strategic News Service, who this week said that Microsoft (MSFT) is “not a place that gets consumers.” That’s a pretty bold statement, considering that Windows has mad market share for consumer-based PCs and Xbox gets plenty of respect from that young online gaming crowd. (Techmeme, Mary Jo Foley, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes)

But, regardless of whether Anderson is on the money about this one or not, his comments are definitely worth pondering - not only in Redmond but on Main Street and Wall Street, too He presented his thoughts at a New York shindig at the Waldorf-Atoria last night and the Times’ Steve Lohr made note of one of Anderson’s observations. At the event, Anderson said:

Except for gaming, it is ‘game over’ for Microsoft in the consumer market. It’s time to declare Microsoft a loser in phones. Just get out of Dodge… Phones are consumer items, and Microsoft doesn’t have consumer DNA.

It’s no secret that I’m no fan of Microsoft. I lean toward Google (GOOG) for productivity apps, I own several Mac (AAPL) (and one Win7) computers and I never once considered a Windows Mobile phone for my personal/corporate use. My son has had an Xbox for years and rumor is that Santa may be bringing him an Xbox 360 for Christmas. That’s about it for our love for Microsoft products.

The point about smartphones is pretty big, though. The lineup is getting crowded and with iPhone, Google’s Android and even Palm’s (PALM) WebOS getting a lot of attention for what they’re doing in designs and app integration, Microsoft is left among the “and others” in the smartphone game. Anderson could be exactly on target with his predictions if Microsoft doesn’t pull off a complete 180 to what it’s doing in mobile right now.

Mobile is the future of computing. At some point, I see mobile devices becoming our primary computers, carried around on our hips just as they are today but then wirelessly connecting to a larger keyboard and touch-screen monitor for bigger jobs, such as typing reports and creating presentations. If my phone eventually becomes my home and work computer, why do I need an actual laptop or desktop computer running Windows?

I’m not saying that’s going to happen overnight. And I’m certainly not going to join Anderson on his limb by also saying that it’s “game over” for Microsoft in the consumer market. But unless Microsoft makes some pretty bold changes - instead of just trying to modernize an outdated OS with a few tweaks and a couple of new features - it could find itself exactly in the position that Anderson predicts: watching the game from the sidelines bench.

Yes Virginia, there really is a Google Phone! And no, I don’t mean all those Android-powered devices, but instead a Google-branded phone that is made by an original equipment maker. The company has started giving away these devices to its employees, who started tweeting about it last night, and the company had to make an announcement this morning. In a blog post on the Android Blog, Mario Queiroz, Vice President, Product Management writes:

Amazing, crazy, why? Those were the first things that ran through my mind when I read that Google is actually make a device. This is very much a page out of Microsoft’s playbook. Microsoft makes specification designs and Google seems to be doing just that. Of course, just as Microsoft and its Zune came along to compete with all those Play4Sure MP3 players, Google can make its own hardware and thus compete with the same folks who are betting the farm on Android.

The company says it is doing this for the employees, but why shouldn’t we believe that they will start selling it to consumers? After all, Google has the brand and the means to do that.   If I am Motorola, then I shouldn’t be happy,  because now I am going to be competing with a Google-branded device. I need to talk to Google about the rationale of this decision before passing judgment. I have fired off emails to Motorola and other Android supporters as well

Reading between the lines, Google’s decision to release a device shows that the company is worried about the fear of fragmentation of the Android ecosystem that we have often talked about. By putting its stake in the ground, the company is hoping that it doesn’t make the mistake that Microsoft made by dragging its feet in releasing Zune and ceding the market to Apple’s iPod. The iPhone, despite the issues with AT&T’s pokey 3G network, as very eloquently pointed out by Verizon in its ads, continues to sell like a monster. Google doesn’t have much time and needs to respond fast.

On the plus side of the news — maybe you can return those Droids now that Time Magazine has put its hex on the device.

Microsoft Office 2010 officially hit the beta channels last week, and the crew at Lifehacker has spent some time getting acquainted with it. According to their early judgment, the newest version doesn't make the leap that Office 2007 made from 2003, or even that Windows 7 made from Vista, but there are enough little tweaks and improvements to keep things interesting.

To see some screenshots of the Office beta in action, and to read more about the new features, hit the source link below. Of course, you can always get your own hands-on time, too, by heading over to Microsoft and downloading the beta of Office 2010. For now, it's free to download, but it will expire, at which point you'll have to pony up for a proper commercial version

Back in May 2007, Google launched the ‘Google Street View’  in five US cities which later expanded to different cities all over the world. The service provides users with a 360-degree horizontal and 290-degree vertical panoramic street-level view on Google Maps.

This amazing ground-level imagery service is now launched in Singapore making it the first country in Southeast Asia and the fourth country in Asia Pacific after Japan, Australia and New Zealand to have Google Street View.

The service is now live at Google Maps SG. This service surely would change and boost businesses in Singapore, local organizations could post their business listing on the map and embed the street view directly on their websites.  Websites like GoThere.sg , iProperty.com.sg ,PropertyGuru.com.sg could be the primary websites profiting from it by integrating Google Street View in their service.

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB), is very pleased with Street View’s ability to showcase some of Singapore’s best-loved tourist attractions and hidden gems to a global audience.

Mr Ken Low, Assistant Chief Executive (Marketing), STB, said “STB is very excited by Street View’s marketing potential as it will further raise Singapore’s prominence and reach through the Internet. People unfamiliar with Singapore can now get a first look at our city. The convenience of Google Maps, and the Street View feature, will give people from anywhere in the world a much better idea and picture of what Singapore looks like, and what it has to offer and we welcome private sector initiatives such as these which help us add value to our visitors’ experiences.”

Despite being a service welcomed by most, Street View has always invited controversy over privacy issues in many countries since its launch. To address this, Google uses a computer algorithm to red flag the image data received and blurring the faces and car license plates. The company says that the pictures users see on Street View can be a few months to a few years old, depending on the time lapsed between when the images were collected and processed. There are also tools for a user to request removal of pictures with inappropriate content.

You can now run Chromium OS, the open source developmental version of Google Chrome OS, on your Dell Mini 10v. Don’t have one? Neither do I, so don’t feel too bad.

It make take some time to set up. For one, the download (an image file), as put together by a few of Dell’s Linux guys, weighs in at 7.5GB. Not only will that take a while to download, but you’ll also need a flash drive with at least 8GB of free space on there—another thing I don’t have. You’ll also need access to another Linux-based computer (well, any computer that can run the “dd” command) to get everything up and running.

Beyond that, it does appear to be fairly painless to instal. You download said image file then copy it from the Linux computer using “dd” to the flash drive. You take this flash drive, stick it into you Dell Mini 10, and away you go!

What’s your reward for going through all that? Running Chromium OS, of course. Think of it as Google Chrome OS, but way alpha.

Looks like the Global Warming science that is “settled” became a bit unsettled after a large amount of data from climate scientists was either hacked into or released by an insider. The email messages among climate scientists paints a picture of deception and cover-up.

Scientists lamented about data that showed cooling rather than warming, discussed tricks to manipulate data to get the results they wanted, lamented over data that showed a cooling trend, cheered the death of a scientist critical of global warming, and discussed ways of breaking the law to avoid freedom of information requests as well as ways to keep critics from publishing peer reviewed papers.

Not that any of this has been thoroughly investigated by the main stream media.

Does this mean that man made global warming is a hoax? Not in and of itself though it is highly suggestive that the so called settled science is anything but settled.

The so called reputable scientists that global warming supporters point to as the beacons of truth have taken a serious hit because they demonstrated that they are not so reputable after all. Their leaked emails show a group of people who manipulated science to push an agenda rather than people who used science to prove or disprove global warming.

This shows what I have said all along and that is the science is not settled. It can’t be when the data used to settle it is flawed. It also shows that while we need to continue using good science to investigate the climate, we do not need to commit trillions of dollars to something that is quite unsettled.

The global warming crowd tried to squeeze out scientists who did not toe the line for the cause and this has come back to bite them.

The hockey stick graph has been discredited and now the scientists involved in global warming study have been discredited as well.

Al Gore needs a new line because the science is not settled.

If anything, the dishonesty is quite unsettling.