JR Raphael

Spending $150 to $200 on a tablet won't get you much these days: In most cases, you're looking at an off-brand Android product with a single-core processor, barely any RAM and a low-resolution, low-quality display. Depending on the device, you might not even have access to Google's app market or other basic services -- and while that approach may work with retailer-backed, limited-use products like Amazon's Kindle Fire, when it comes to more traditional Android tablets, it doesn't usually lead to the best user experience.

Smartphones may make our lives easier, but boy, they sure do make our wallets lighter. A typical smartphone setup with one of the major U.S. carriers costs around $70 to $80 a month -- and that's on the lower end of the spectrum. So what if there were a way you could get the same kind of service for less than half the cost?

It turns out there is -- if you're willing to make a few trade-offs. The secret lies in a rapidly growing but rarely discussed segment of the smartphone market known as prepaid or contract-free service. Prepaid service has been around for some time, but in the last couple of years it's started to transform from a source of cheap, bottom-of-the-barrel phones into a viable outlet for compelling smartphones.

Working in tech support is a bit like teaching preschool: You're an educator who provides reassurance in troubling times. You share knowledge and help others overcome their obstacles. And some days, it feels like all you hear is screaming, crying, and incoherent babble.

Tech support is no cakewalk -- there's no question about that -- but boy, does it lead to entertaining anecdotes. After all, if the IT pro is the preschool teacher, the customers are the children. And kids, as we all know, are always saying the darnedest things.

François Barraud - His Master's Voice flickr/Cea.From the hum of an old car's engine to the galunk! of a fictional plumber's fireball, sounds have an amazing ability to transport us back in time. Even just a two-second pop is often enough to bring back powerful memories of people, places, and objects from the past.

Outside of our minds, however, sounds have a far less reliable lifespan -- especially within the realm of technology. As electronics evolve, so do the sounds that go with it -- and many of the dings, beeps, and hisses burned into our brains will hold no emotional connection to the teens of tomorrow. Some of them may already be meaningless to the 20-somethings of today.

What's in a name? When it comes to servers, as it turns out, quite a lot.

Server names are designed for functionality: They let system administrators easily identify each machine and keep track of what it does. For some companies, that means coming up with a cut-and-dried alphanumeric convention. For others, it means taking the opportunity to get a little creative.

Americans like living large. We have all-you-can-eat buffets and all-you-can-stream entertainment. And until recently, we had a virtually unlimited trough of mobile data to digest on our always-available smartphones.

At this point, though, all but one of the major U.S. carriers now limit smartphone data usage in one way or another. AT&T and Verizon charge if you go over your allotted number of bytes, while T-Mobile slows your speed down to a crawl once you've crossed its carefully measured line. Only Sprint continues to offer truly unlimited data plans to new subscribers. (Some lucky users on the other networks are still grandfathered in to unlimited plans; we'll see how long that lasts.)