Image editing, file format conversion, encryption/ decryption: there are many reasons why you might want to process a file, and usually you'll require a different program to handle each one.

File Blender, though, is a little more ambitious. The program provides a simple front end to tools like IrfanView, FFmpeg, LAME MP3 Encoder and more, and can be further extended to provide a unified, portable interface for all your file processing needs.

Social network Facebook on Tuesday released a new app for iOS and Android mobile devices called Facebook Messenger. The application is effectively a standalone mobile version of the new Facebook Messages platform which allows users to send messages to individuals or groups of individuals in their phone book or Facebook friends list.

Facebook unveiled Messages in late 2010, billing it as a single, unified inbox that could thread together many disparate methods of communication into a single stream. If two users are conversing over Facebook chat, and one switches over to a mobile device, for example, the conversation would still take place through Messages, except the messages are being sent through SMS instead of a Web interface.

AOL stock hit its lowest point since the company separated from Time Warner, after a 25.75 percent death-tumble. A last-minute rally pulled shares up, which earlier had fallen by more than 26 percent. AOL closed at $11.19, down from its $15.19 opening.

The disastrous day of trading followed another. Yesterday, on the first day following Standard & Poor's downgrade of the United States credit rating to AA+ from AAA, the Dow closed down a stunning 635 points and Nasdaq declined by 6.9 percent -- taking many tech stocks with it.

Apple Inc. managed to shoot right past Exxon Mobil in the stock market to become the most valuable publicly-traded company in the world, but the big oil company kept up the fight throughout trading on Tuesday.

As of August 8th, the top ten international companies by market capitalization were Exxon Mobil, Apple Inc, then IBM, Microsoft, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, AT&T, General Electric, and Coca-Cola. But over the course of Monday and Tuessday, Exxon Mobil's shares fell while Apple's rallied, and the number one and number two companies swapped positions.

Despite all the attention as of late on mobile security, a majority of mobile apps still have security flaws that should be of concern, warns security firm ViaForensics. The results come from comprehensive security tests for 100 apps on both the Android and iOS platforms.

Each app was given one of three possible ratings -- pass, warn, or fail -- depending on whether or not ViaForensics was able to access data it stored in each of the apps. A "pass" rating was given if the data could either not be found or was stored encrypted. For apps where the data was found but did not pose an immediate risk, a "warn" rating was assign.

Gasp. You read the headline right. Today, Apple won an injunction against major rival Samsung. A Dusseldorf court issued the injunction, which is preliminary.

Did I not write just a few hours ago claiming Apple is engaging in competition by litigation, rather than innovation? According to IDC, Samsung is Apple's biggest competitor in the tablet market. But rather than compete, the market leader has engaged in a campaign to block Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales just as the tablet launches in many countries around the world. What I find so surprising: How easily Apple is let off by bloggers and journalists for bullying behavior that would generate scathing headlines if Google or Microsoft was the protagonist.

BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion has offered to assist British authorities in tracking down those participating in the riots across the UK, it said Monday. The move irked supporters of the rioters, and RIM's blog was subsequently hacked in retaliation.

It has also gotten the attention of British politicians. David Lammy, a member of parliament from the riot-stricken north London suburb of Tottenham, has called for the BlackBerry Messenger service to be shut down in the country. "This is one of the reasons why unsophisticated criminals are outfoxing an otherwise sophisticated police force," he lamented.

Finnish mobile phone leader Nokia will be dealing exclusively in Windows Phones in the United States, according to several reports on Tuesday. The company's devices that run other mobile operating systems: S40, Symbian, and Meego, will not be sold in the North American market at all.

In an exclusive interview with AllThingsD's Ina Fried, Nokia Inc. President Chris Weber said the company will be putting all its strength into Windows Phone in North America, and that the continent is essentially "out of the Symbian…S40 business."

Apple's patent bullying continues -- competition by litigation rather than innovation. Today the US International Trade Commission agreed to investigate five patents Apple claims that HTC violates.

Perhaps Apple smells blood in the water, from an earlier, somewhat favorable ruling. The company sued HTC for patent infringement in March 2010; at the time, HTC was one of the largest -- if not the largest -- Android licensees. I called the lawsuit "competition by litigation" -- "where Apple hopes to scare off mobile manufacturers from licensing Android". Apple's lawsuit alleged HTC infringed 20 patents. It was really an attack on Google and Android and it seemed frivolous. Still, about a month ago, ITC ruled in Apple's favor on two of the 20 patents.

A new operating system is always greatly anticipated and this is certainly true for Mac OS X. Apple's Lion caused waves of excitement when it released last month but, as is often the case, not everything that has been added to or changed in the OS has been received quite so warmly. While Lion has generally received good reviews, there are still a number of aspects that have caused irritation to users who have upgraded from Snow Leopard and this is something that Lion Tweaks can help with. A simple freeware tool that can be used to adjust settings that are not to your liking and disable features you find to be useless or annoying.

For example, reply to an email using Mail and you see a rather nifty animation. You also see this windows animation throughout Lion, particularly when switching between spaces. On a MacBook or Mac Mini, these animations are too slow for comfortable viewing. After a while, they restrict productivity.

Dealing with media files can be a bind, especially video ones as the sheer number of permutations for each file can seem infinite. If you're editing video it really helps to get everything in the same format or at the very least know the format of the files you're using to ensure that your PC can handle them properly.

Generally when you right click a file in Windows and choose "Properties", you can find some basic information, including embedded data for the likes of music files that may include the title, artist, originating album and bitrate amongst others. You don't get full access to information about the codec used to produce the file or much of the key information that can help you to play a stubborn file, so you can find the right software to make it render properly.

Apple has released Lion Recovery Disk Assistant for beleaguered OS X Lion users, allowing them to start the Lion recovery process directly from a USB drive. Previously anyone who'd purchased the Lion upgrade through the Mac App Store would be forced to reinstall and update Snow Leopard before they could reinstall Lion if disaster struck, forcing them to replace the hard disk.

The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant requires an external USB hard drive or USB thumb drive with at least 1GB free space. It will partition the entire drive, so follow the guidelines at this Apple KB article for details of partitioning the drive so the rest of its capacity can continue to be used for general data storage if required.

Four years ago, California-based electronics company Vizio rocketed from virtual anonymity to the position of number one LCD TV maker in the United States ahead of much larger international rivals Samsung, Phillips, Sharp, and Sony. Now, Vizio is hoping to have that same impact in the field of Android tablets with the new 8" Vizio Tablet, officially launched to all retail channels late Monday evening.

Vizio's breakthrough success in the LCD TV market was largely thanks to the affordability and widespread availability of its products through partnerships with big box retailers Costco and Sam's Club. Naturally, this formula will be applied to the Vizio Tablet too, and customers will be able to pick one up at Costco Wholesale, Sam's Club, Walmart, Target, BJ's Wholesale, and Amazon.com for just $299.

Charlie Kindel, a 21-year Microsoft veteran, and most recently General Manager of Windows Phone developer experience, publicly posted his departure from the company to work on his "super secret stealth startup," based in the Seattle Area. For the last two and a half years, Kindel led the team that built the current Windows Phone application platform, and was responsible for much of the evangelism and outreach that accompanied the complete revitalization of Microsoft's mobile ecosystem.

There is no doubt that the last two and a half years have brought the most drastic changes to Microsoft's approach to mobile operating systems. The long-running Windows Mobile came to a screeching halt at version 6.5 when it launched simultaneously with the new "Windows Phone" brand, which at the time, wasn't even an operating system yet.

US stock markets closed markedly down on Monday, following a massive but expected sell-off. Late Friday, Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' coveted AAA rating to AA+. Even the sturdiest of tech stocks couldn't avoid being collateral damage that stripped billions from their valuations.

For example, Apple's market cap was $327.46 billion, down from  $337.04 billion during mid-day trading that already had sapped billions in valuation and reversed gains against Exxon Mobile. The energy giant is the most valuable company as measured by market cap of $345.76 billion. Still, it's likely that barring some utter catastrophe Apple's valuation could top Exxon's before iPhone 5 ships.