As a tech author, blogger and reviewer I get technology sent to me periodically or I pick up bits and pieces myself.  This does mean that I can occasionally find something being replaced when its not too old.  This is about to happen with two tablets, an HP TouchPad 32Gb and a RIM Playbook 16Gb.  [...]

Smartphones and tablets have a lot to answer for, at least when it comes to making technology affordable for the public.  Since the launch of the first iPhone it’s become not only accepted that sensors and other devices such as GPS, multi-touch capacitive screens, NFC, accelerometers, digital compasses and more should be included but we’ve come [...]

The QWERTY keyboard layout has been used in most western countries now since the late 1800′s.  Though there are differences in some countries, such as AZERTY in France, this keyboard layout remains with modern computers even though it’s not always the quickest way for people to type. It was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes who [...]

A judge recently ordered a US citizen to decrypt storage space on a computer so that police forces could analyze protected files on the system. In this particular case, the defendant was ordered to decrypt the hard drive of her Toshiba notebook no later than February 21, or face the consequences “including contempt of court”. [...]

If you are a regular Megaupload user you have probably already noticed that the site and all of the files hosted on its servers are no longer accessible on the Internet. Check out Megaupload Shuts Down, Arrests Have Been Made for an overview of what happened in the past 24 hours. Internet users who have [...]

Sharing an Internet connection with other household members or even neighbors is easier than ever. All you need is a solid wireless router with enough reach to give all parties lag- and trouble-free access to the Internet. All you need for that is to set up a wireless router in a location that is ideal [...]

If you look around at what technology has brought us in 2011 it’s been a truly momentous year.  The iPad 2, new exciting Android tablets with the proper tablet version of the OS, Windows 8, the HP TouchPad with WebOS, Windows Phone ‘Mango’, Ultrabooks, cameras with GPS, multi-touch in laptops, new super-efficient Intel and AMD [...]

If you look around the world at the moment you will see anti-capitalist demonstrations everywhere.  Here in the UK, the historic St Paul’s Cathedral in London, which was built in 1677 and was the wedding venue for Diana, Princess of Wales is currently closed for the first time since the second world war because of [...]

I’m becoming increasingly confused by the whole computing market with all manner of new and, relatively, affordable form factors coming to market.  There was a day not that long ago when you had a choice, Desktop PC or Laptop, indeed even laptops were commonly out of the reach of most people and it’s only relatively [...]

With mobile access to Ghacks reaching new heights every month, I’d like to use this Ask The Readers post to get your opinion on a few things that I have been pondering about for a couple of months. First issue that I would like to throw into the room is mobile access to Ghacks. There [...]

Google’s new social networking service Google Plus has been off to a good start, thanks to Google’s determination and the invite only system. There has been lots of talk about the growth of Google Plus, and some sites did not fail to mention that the networks growth is a lot faster than that of Facebook’s [...]

When you make purchases on the Internet, you often have to pay by credit card. Sometimes there are other payment options available, PayPal or Google Checkout for instance. Without credit card though, you will end up with limited possibilities to shop online. Handing out your credit card on the other hand may be a standard [...]

One of the things that irritates me ever since I started using Windows is software installations on the system. You are probably wondering what’s irritating me. The core problem for me is that there are no general software installation rules on the system. Software by default gets installed mainly into two directory structures. First the [...]

It happens that I get tired in the late afternoons, so tired in fact that I’m hard pressed not to go to bed directly to sleep the sleep of the brave. This happens often after a restless night, or when I wake up to early. The following list contains tips that help me stay awake [...]

So the Chromebook has finally been announced, and first models will ship on June 15 in select countries (US and several European countries). Both Acer and Samsung have revealed some of the specs of the netbooks running Google’s Chrome OS. Both Chromebooks will be powered by a dual-core Intel Atom cpu and a 1280×800 display. [...]

When I started blogging in 2005 Lifehacker was one of the two blogs that I read regularly (the other was Download Squad). Back then, it offered a mix of tech and non-tech articles and guides that made it one of my favorite sources for information. It was one of the first blogs that I added [...]

As a new Windows MVP I’ll be having my first meetings next week with Microsoft at their UK head office in Reading. It’s going to be very interesting as it’s my first official visit to the company and, more importantly, a meeting that’s been requested by them rather than me. I’ll be meeting with the [...]

One of these days, and I’ll try this eventually, I’m going to write an article called “Apple” which will contain just a single word, that word will again be “Apple”.  What will the reason be for doing this?  Simply because I know full well that some Apple fans will be up in arms and probably accuse [...]

Tomorrow WikiLeaks is set to reveal a new series of classified US documents that have been sent by United States Embassies around the world.  The revelations set to shed new light on the country’s relations with friendly and unfriendly states alike, and now the site itself has come under a distributed denial of service attack. Despite [...]

I do a lot of writing about Linux – for Ghacks and for other sites. One of the issues I come across often is how Linux is perceived and what it needs to do to continue to grow. It’s a very complex issue based on a lot of pre-determined opinions and deeply embedded history. Often I reach [...]

Now that I have decided to run a computer system without local pdf reader installed I had to find another comfortable way of dealing with pdf documents. I’m currently using Google Docs for the purpose which is not that big of a nuisance because I have to open pdf documents rarely and I have the [...]

If you have been playing around much with the Alpha releases of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx you may have noticed something special that was announced some time ago is actually coming to fruition.  Announced soon after the release of 9.10, the Ubuntu Music Store is a new addition to the Ubuntu Linux desktop and promises to [...]

Recently I have had several people call me on mis-stepping the nomenclature surrounding the Linux operating system. But I get this a lot, and from all points of the spectrum: From newbies to power users. The central issue that I have is that this issue causes great confusion with newbies and anger with power users. [...]

Yesterday, the founder of popular screen-sharing app Mikogo shared with the world that he was threatened to be sued by the city of Mannheim if he does not stop using his twitter name, which is http://twitter.com/mannheim.  His name is Mark Zondler, but he and the company is based in Mannheim. Does any of you think [...]

The new year is here and you have made a resolution to give Linux a try. A noble resolution and one that will be met, initially, with much confusion. Why? Linux isn’t like Windows where your choice is limited to a single release with different features (depending upon how much you want to spend) or [...]

Is it really almost 2010? The first decade of 2k is nearly at an end, a decade that has been quite prosperous for the Linux operating system. A decade that saw the world’s economy plummet, giving rise to the need for more and more free, open source software. But what will the next decade bring [...]

It’s almost that time again – time to start chatting up the next release coming out of the Ubuntu-verse. I know, I know…it seems the tires of 9.10 were just kicked. They were. Ubuntu 9.10 was well received, but now something bigger and better is coming around the corner. But what should be expected of [...]

Of all the Linux distributions, the consensus is beginning to become clear that Ubuntu is, hands down, the most user friendly of the Linux distributions. Naturally there are people that claim other distributions like PCLinuxOS, and Linux Mint are even more user-friendly than Ubuntu. But what exactly makes a Linux distribution user-friendly? I have been using [...]

Today I thought I would diverge away from my usual tutorials so I could point out that today, September the 19th, is Software Freedom Day. Software Freedom Day is a worldwide celebration of FOSS (Free Open Source Software) that aims to enlighten computer users who do not know about the FOSS alternatives. For this day [...]

If you’ve been around long enough you will probably remember the Be operating system. Be began life in 1991 by Be Inc as an operating system for BeBox hardware. There was a lot of excitement about this operating system as it was going to be the be all end all OS for multimedia. The operating [...]

My plan is to build a new computer system after Windows 7 is released to install the new operating system on it and retire my old Windows XP system. I have done little research until now and decided to tap into the best possible resource of computer knowledge there is: the Ghacks readers. I do [...]

Often, when I ask why users don’t adopt Linux, I am met with the response “There are no CAD (Computer Aided Design) applications. Now I will confess that I know next to nothing about CAD, so I thought I would take a moment to highlight some of the CAD applications available for the Linux operating [...]

Lately, I’ve realized that my computer is full of data and is close to its limit. Normally, I burn data onto a CD or DVD and then delete it off my system. The problem is that over time, the CDs have developed a few unreadable areas. So, I’ve pretty much lost a few chunks of [...]

A couple of months ago, I did something I thought I never would do: I bought an iPhone. Technology enthusiasts generally seem pretty torn about these devices: some see them as fantastic whilst others see them as an expensive device which isn’t very functional. I, too, was torn. I vowed never to buy an iPhone, [...]

With the well developed Google Desktop Sidebar and the Vista Sidebar, putting all your gadgets and websites on a sidebar always visible might be quite tempting and can provide loads of information like email, RSS, weather, notes etc., but do you actually use these features? Does the usefulness outweigh the memory usage? Personally I like [...]

I know you’ve all seen it, naughty people, you download a game for example, and the crack file says something like “Our cracker team does not support piracy, if you like the game, buy it”. So do you? I don’t know about you guys, but while I was “coming of age” I probably wouldn’t have [...]

I just got my hands on a new Sony Vaio FW, and I’m really interested to know how you guys use the operating system on your laptop. My old one had XP installed, which I threw away, downloaded a fresh copy, and used my serial on that without any problems, and as long as I [...]

We’ve been learning a lot about you guys in the past weeks, and I think this will be one of my favorite questions, since productive emailing can reward you with a huge time advantage, perhaps you guys have some secret email management skills out there! Basically what I am asking this time, is do you [...]

First we had a look at how you all use your browser, then how you listen to music and watch videos, now it’s time to find out about instant messaging! With all the IM apps out there you could be using any one, or any combination, from web based, to desktop based, from one service, [...]

I had relatives from out of the country a little while ago and before they left, one of them decided to leave his laptop behind for me. It’s an old model from the Toshiba Satellite 2410 series but I’m not complaining since I got it free. The current configuration of the laptop is a little [...]

Following up on last week’s much commented article about how you guys use your Firefox, I decided to also take a look at how you use your media player applications. This is perhaps a bit more complex than last week’s question, since we are covering multiple applications. Nevertheless, which media player do you use, and [...]

Windows will try to access the contents of a DVD that is in a DVD drive whenever the user is accessing Windows Explorer. This can become pretty annoying as the DVD drive is starting to spin up making some loud noises in the process. The question now is if there is a way to lock [...]

At the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the Digital Entertainment Group released its figures for DVD spending in the United States in 2008. The results were a 5.5% decrease from the previous year. DEG’s figures aren’t just for outright sales of DVDs, but also include DVD rentals and Blu-Ray disc sales. Rental revenue stayed [...]

It’s holiday season and while it is the season to spend time with the family and be grateful for your loved ones, it’s also the season for presents. Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, it’s likely that there’s something you really want to get your hands on. Since this is Ghacks, there’s a pretty good [...]

In today’s world, owning a cell phone and/or a portable media player has practically become a necessity. The thing is I don’t own either. No, I do not live in a cave, I just took a conscious decision not to own one. Recently though, I’ve decided to invest in an mp3 player. I knew about [...]

We have been writing about great free software programs for more than three years now here at Ghacks and it is finally time to create a list of programs that we can recommend fully to anyone who is looking for a software with that functionality. It would not be Ghacks if we would not ask [...]

Will we continue to produce smaller and smaller gadgets? Will Google rule the World? Will the internet get faster and faster? I’ve always wanted to ask these questions, here’s my take on some of this, please do comment, I’m really interested to know what you guys think! First of all, size. I mean the iPhone [...]

Most Internet users rely heavily on Google. They use Google to search, Google Mail for emails, Google Reader for feed reading, Google Adsense or Adwords in their business and various other Google services. That got me thinking about the consequences of a Google downtime. What would you do if Google went down completely for a [...]

The IP address. Your gateway to the internet. That little set of numbers that guarantees you can log on and check mail, watch videos, etc. This is something I only used to bother about when my internet connection stopped working and I needed to check if there was a problem from my end. All this [...]

Almost everyone owns a laptop these days. And every owner will tell you what a challenge it is to keep the laptop from the bumps and scratches that result when your laptop gets jostled around in the bag. A laptop sleeve is a protective cover for a laptop. It is usually constructed of a thin [...]