There’s a pretty good chance that you’re reading this article on either an LCD screen or an LED screen. We’re not here to discuss the differences between the two (LED is basically LCD’s prettier, slightly more expensive younger sister). Instead, we’re going to take a look at how your monitor works. How does an image go from an...

So… you want to go Mac, but you don’t want the high price tag that goes along with it, and decide to go used. Where do you go to find good used Macs? Personally, I find the best destination to be Apple Authorized Reseller shops. These are guys and gals that refit/rebuild/refurbish Macs to as-good-as-new condition, and most of the time offer a...

If you have a laptop made within the last 3 years, chances are very good it has a card reader slot. Chances are also very good your desktop computer also has a card reader (or one attached via USB). Using portable apps when bouncing between your laptop and desktop is convenient because those little cards stay tucked out of the way and perform...

I’ve written my fair share of articles with my laptop propped up by my legs, and I’m sure most of us who have portable PCs have held them in that general area. As it just so happens…that’s a very, very, very bad idea- particularly if you’re pregnant. See, the thing about laptops is that the complex circuitry within emits a fairly...

There are some people who really like smooth scrolling when using a web browser on the desktop. In fact, the latest Firefox 16 installs with it enabled by default and has since version 15. Is smooth scrolling any good? I don’t define smooth scrolling as outright “good” or “bad”, because it all comes down to what you prefer to see...

There has been a lot of talk in the games console industry recently about the future of the home console. A lot of big people in the industry seem to be of the belief that it will not be around in the future. Even going as far as saying that the next incarnations of the Xbox and PS are the last that we as consumers are going to ever see. I don’t believe...

For those not in the know, “WX” when referred to as a band means “weather”, so I’m talking about portable radios that can receive the AM, FM and WX bands. The deal when it comes to a portable radio is that everyone should own one for the simple reason that when the power is out, radio is quite literally your only way of getting...

Laptops have an issue with them that isn’t shared by their larger, desk-bound brethren. Given the close proximity of their components to one another, they’re actually fairly difficult to keep cool. While some systems don’t seem to have much of an issue, others seem to overheat at the drop of a hat. Cooling trays aren’t so much a luxury...

Microsoft Office 2000 is, as far as I’m concerned, the best release of MSO ever to exist. Why? It’s lightning fast, has unbelievably good backward compatibility, and as you’ll see in the above video, it’s actually...

A relatively unknown feature of CCleaner that most people aren’t aware of is the ability to right-click on any section or group inside the application to clean parts of the Windows OS individually instead of all at once. Sometimes when running the CCleaner software you just want to clean specific parts instead of the entire OS. The above video shows you...

It’s no good creating a secure password if the website you’ve signed up for doesn’t bother protecting your information. Sadly, it seems as though a lot of people have been learning this the hard way, of late. The number of password leaks that have surfaced just over the past two months has been positively staggering, and the revelation that...

The initial release of 1995 happened on Thursday, 24 August 1995, which at the time of this writing was exactly 17 years, 1 month, 2 weeks, and 3 days ago. I can do this math easily because of Windows 7 Calculator, by the way:Gotta love Windows 7 Calculator. Anyway, I remember when Microsoft Windows 95 was new, and there’s been a whole bunch of stuff...

Something I find funny is how the internet throws out words and terms where the assumption is made that everyone is supposed to magically know exactly what the word/term means and how it’s applied. “Hashtag” is something which is a combination of two words, hash and tag. The hash part represents the octothorpe (#) which most people known as the...

Game Selection: Winner: Steam While it’s certainly something of an unfair comparison at this point (after all, Origin’s still very much the new kid on the block as far as digital distribution’s concerned), it’s still something a lot of people are judging Origin on. while Steam has a massive library comprised of thousand upon thousands of...

Flash memory these days is stupidly cheap. A 64GB memory card is under 40 bucks. To put this in perspective, a 64GB memory card will hold the data of 13 DVD-5 (the 4.7GB kind) discs. Now while true that DVD media is way, way cheaper than Flash memory, bear in mind a memory card can never be scratched and is physically a whole lot smaller. At some point in the...

Skype, arguably one of the most-used instant messaging services these days, has recently had a rash of profile pic spam messages start appearing. The sad part? Some people are stupid enough to actually click those spam links and get infected with malware. Yes, it’s the same “run this EXE and see my pic” crapola you saw 10 years ago. You would...

You’d think that, with all the advances we’ve been making in the world of computing, with all the new manufacturing techniques and cost-cutting methods being employed by OEMs, people would be packing increasingly powerful hardware into their systems, right? After all, reduced costs means that those who plan to shell out for a gaming PC can,...

The term “Big Data” is now used to basically describe a service where you put your trust and faith into a third party to house all your digital stuff. Or to put it simply, “Cloud”. Most of you know Big Data as services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 and Microsoft Skydrive. Free Big Data is, simply put, anything you can use which is...

I have four web browsers installed on my computer (mainly for writing articles here when I need to test out stuff), that being Internet Explorer 9, Opera 12.02, Firefox 15.0.1 and Chrome 22. My favorite home page is by far the one used in Opera, the “Speed Dial” feature. Now while true you can use add-ons/extensions to get other browsers to have...

Many folks have taken to referring to hackers by the theoretical color of their hat- white, black, or gray. But what, exactly does all that mean? How exactly does one categorize a ‘hat?’ Believe it or not, that’s actually incredibly simple- and nowhere near as complex as some of the other terminology we’ve covered. Let’s get...