10 Top Windows 8 Apps You May Pay Attention

Using Windows 8 apps is a first for many of us. Yet these tiny programs can be very beneficial and can greatly enhance your computing experience. Here are my top ten Windows 8 apps.

1.  Jujuba’s free Clock app

Microsoft didn’t include a clock in the Windows 8 Metro desktop, and many people miss it. I like this one because it’s a live tile that shows both the date and time. When open, it gives you a large analog clock and calendar.

2. News Bento

This news app offers a great Windows 8 app experience. You can select from its growing list of news sources or add an RSS feed from any website. Bento’s news articles expand to fill the screen making them easily readable and you can use the Share charm to share articles.

3.  Skype app

Compare the Skype app to the Skype traditional experience and you will immediately see a cleaner and more usable interface. It syncs with the contacts in your People hub and gives you notifications even when you are in another app.

4.  Fresh Paint

This app will bring out your creativity. It really shines on a touch screen, but is also quite usable with a mouse. Choose your canvas, brush, and color. Then start having fun. You can even draw on a picture from your hard drive or one taken with your webcam.

5.  Tool Box

This versatile app gives you the ability to perform six different tasks. It functions as a clock, calculator, takes voice notes, shows the weather, and has Facebook integration. It even lets you doodle during a boring meeting. You can choose different layouts and can show up to six tools at one.

6.   Google Search

While the built-in Bing Search app is very good, many of us want another option. That’s where the Google Search app comes in. This app gives you a full web experience with an excellent interface. It also gives you easy access to all of Google’s services, many of which don’t have apps.

7.   Evernote

Evernote is the perfect gathering point for information. Whether you are doing serious research or coordinating a home project, it will let you make notes, save scraps of information, and keep everything organized. It also keeps everything in sync between your desktop and mobile devices.

8.  IM+

Windows 8 comes with a Messaging app, but it only works with Facebook and Windows Live Messenger. If you have friends or relatives who use other chat interfaces, you need an app like this. IM+ supports Google Talk, AIM, Facebook, Jabber, ICQ, and Yahoo Messenger.

9.  Tasks

List makers will find this app full-featured. You can group items by categories and projects, prioritize tasks, define due dates, and add notes and pictures.

10.  Microsoft Solitaire Collection

Solitaire is the most played computer game of all time. This collection offers five variations including Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, TriPeaks, and Pyramid. It also has a variety of backgrounds and deck designs. You’ll never get bored!

Article resource: http://www.techpageone.com/technology/10-top-windows-8-apps/#.Ua2muORNtmQ

What Are the Best Apps in Windows 8?

Windows 8 has many interesting new features, but the most important has to be the Store.
It's now easy to enhance your PC with a host of powerful apps - games, multimedia, tools, productivity and more - and these can then automatically be installed on all your other Windows 8 systems in a click or two.

This article is going to introduce some of the best apps in Windows 8, and hope you will like it.

1. Metro Commander

One immediate advantage of the Store is it makes it very easy for developers to plug whatever gaps Microsoft might leave. So don't waste time wondering why Microsoft hasn't provided a file manager for the Start Screen, for instance - just install Metro Commander, instead.
The program provides a dual-pane interface on your files and folders, provides easy access to all the usual core functions - View, Rename, Copy, More, New Folder, New File and more - and offers integrated SkyDrive support, too.

2. Norton Satellite

Easy integration with online services such as Facebook is a plus point for Windows 8 - but you need to keep an eye on your security. And the free Norton Satellite can help.
The program uses apps to scan your Facebook links and Dropbox files, for instance, alerting you to threats before they have a chance to infect you. And if your worries lie elsewhere, then Satellite can scan particular files or folders on demand.

3. Multimedia 8

If you're missing Windows Media Centre, then fear not, the Store does have some interesting alternatives - and Multimedia 8 is one of the best.
The program makes it easy to browse your music, video and playlists, for instance. In a click (or a touch) you can access files on a media server, or the web.

4. Free Books

Which cloud services are right for you?
There's more to ebooks than Amazon and Kindle: no, really. And by way of evidence, look no further than Free Books. This attractive app offers more than 23,000 free books (mostly old classics), neatly organised by category and author, with an interesting selection of "Featured" books if you just want to browse.
Double-click any book to download it to your library. Double-click again to read it; tap right or left to turn the appropriate page; and of course the app remembers your current page, so if you leave it and come back later then you'll be able to carry on where you left off.

If you want to get or learn more apps in Windows 8, just visit its official site of Microsoft: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/apps

11 Winning Alternatives to Windows 8's Built-in Apps (Part 1)

Windows 8 comes preloaded with plenty of apps for basic productivity and entertainment, but they're not necessarily the best you can do. We've already mentioned the apps you should download first, but now we want to share some third-party apps that you might like more than what Microsoft includes in its basic Windows 8 installation.

None of the following apps is perfect, but the same holds true for the apps built directly into Windows 8—hence the point of this article in the first place.

People

Part contacts list, part social media hub, Microsoft's People app is a central bucket for all the personal associations you make via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Although this built-in app shares Facebook and Twitter updates, it's confusing in the way it jumbles together all your services.

Likewise, People is definitely not a worthy Twitter client. And no worthy Twitter clients are available in the Windows Store yet. An official Twitter app is in the works; but until it arrives, we'll all have to make do with third-party alternatives.

Video

Microsoft's Video app has a split personality. It's a storefront for purchasing the latest movies and TV episodes, as well a video player for your own personal content. Unfortunately, when we tried it, shilling commercial content seemed to take precedence, leaving many PCWorld editors wishing for a deeper, more robust video-player app.

PressPlay is an excellent alternative for viewing your local files. It supports great touch controls that allow you to adjust the volume, change the video's position, and browse videos with the flick of a finger. It doesn't offer any videos for sale, but that's a good thing—and a thing best left to the app built into Windows 8. PressPlay is free in the Windows Store.

Messaging

Microsoft's Messaging app lets you quickly chat with anyone in your contacts or Facebook list, and it even supports video chat. That's great for communicating with the friends you have on those networks, but you'll probably want to chat with people on myriad other services too.

IM+ facilitates messaging through nearly every imaginable service, from Facebook to ICQ. It supports photo sharing, text messaging, and multiple accounts per service, making for the most comprehensive messaging app we could find on the Windows Store, all for free.

Calendar

The built-in Calendar app does exactly what you'd think it would, but not much more. You can check the day's events, add an event with reminder options, and...that's about it. You can use Microsoft's app to sync up your own personal Google calendar, but you're out of luck if you need to sync Google calendars that have been shared with you.

That's why, as with the Mail app (see below), we recommend using the tried-and-true Google calendar as the alternative. You have to access it via your browser, of course, but you'll be able to see all your schedules at once without worrying about hacking the app. And yes, you can put Google Calendar on your Start screen: Just pin it to Start as you would any other URL, and pretend that it's an app.