…Now that you have been “properly introduced” to our programs, it’s time to see what these things can truly do. As always, we will be reviewing the first five today. Be sure to check tomorrow for the latter half. That said, here we go…

App #1: Shopify

Houston, We Have a Problem: Upon further research, we found that Shopify is actually a pay service masquerading as a free service. On top of that, you need to enter a credit card number in order to even try it out. While we have no problem paying for a program — again, capitalism = good — we believe that hiding your true motives behind the “free” label is simply bad form. Because of this, we will not be reviewing this program. We will make it up to all of you. We promise.

App #2: YubNub

Upon Further Reflection: “That poor snail [the YubNub logo] looks like it hasn’t slept in days. It also has a candle on it’s back. Why does it have a candle on its back?”
What Does it Do, Exactly?: YubNub combines the basic principles of the command line interface — easy to use shorthand, minimal graphics, etc — and the average search engine to make an alleged searching masterpiece. To use a real world example, let’s say you wanted to use Google to search various PDF files for the word “marginalization.” You also have no desire to see any ads. In YubNub, all you have to do is type “g site2pdf scro marginalization.” It’s as easy as that.
Positives: It’s extremely powerful and useful … Provided you’re into that sort of thing, that is.
Negatives: It’s not for everyone. The average person would find YubNub insanely frustrating.
Overall (Out of Ten): 9.5 (for geeky people); 4.5 (for everyone else).
Might We Suggest: At the main YubNub screen, type in the string “dinorand,” then press enter. You will not regret it.

App #3: Zapr

Clarification: When we say “file sharing,” we don’t mean “Napster circa 1999″ here. All of the shared content is in the form of a link. Unlike the peer-to-peer applications of old, said link can only be shared by the user or users that created that link. Random people cannot go and start downloading your content without your say so.
The Program: It looks like Live Messenger, only instead of talking to people, you’re sharing files and whatnot.
Positives: Sadly, none that we can see. It isn’t working for us.
Negatives: At the present moment, we can only thing of one problem: It is not working. That’s somewhat of a big deal.
Overall: N/A, as we couldn’t get it working.

App #4: Pixenate

Have I Seen This Somewhere Before?: Pixenate would have fit right in to our Image Editor Showdown.
Positives: Quick and dirty photo editor. Sometimes, that’s all you need.
Negatives: The overall “work area” is limited, and the ads that sit at the bottom of the screen can get to be annoying.
Overall: 7; It’s nothing fancy, but it will work in a pinch.

App #5: Trexy

So … What Exactly Is a “Trexy?”: To be honest, we still have no idea. We found ourselves randomly clicking on things, hoping that something exciting would happen. The best we could come up with in our initial go-around was a search for “eight inch floppy disks.” Upon further research, we found that Trexy is based upon the idea of “trails” — a list of links that all relate to one another. A search for “cats,” for example, got everything from “All About Cats” to “The Cat That Saved Thanksgiving.”
Final Thought: It certainly looks interesting, but we still have no idea as to what is going on. If we do figure it out, we will post a score.

…And there you have it. Tune in tomorrow for part two of our “trip around the world.”