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[Tim Cook kicked off this year’s D: All Things Digital conference on Tuesday. The Apple CEO was interviewed by conference hosts Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, in a lively, engaging conversation. Here’s an edited roundup of the highlights.]

One-trick-pony software applications often play useful roles, especially if they have secondary advantages such as a lower price, smaller memory requirements, or the ability to run well on older systems. Wondershare's PDF Converter Pro ($80 as of April 27, 2012) certainly has a narrow focus, offering fewer features than competing PDF utilities; unfortunately, it costs nearly as much as those competing programs.

Conversion Diversions

PDF creation and conversion applications are more common than rainbows in Hawaii. A new version of one of these utilities, Lulu Software's Soda PDF Pro + OCR ($100 as of April 27, 2012), promises big features for its modest price; unfortunately, though it performs basic functions adequately, it doesn't quite deliver on the pot of gold.

PDF Competitors

High-dynamic-range photography can be a tricky process, and although some digital cameras have an HDR capture mode, ultimately you'll want to capture the images and combine them yourself for the ultimate in creative control. Unified Color's new HDR Expose 2 image-editing application ($149 as of April 30, 2012) claims to overcome camera limitations by combining multiple images of different exposures to create one properly exposed composition. If you can snap the right images--and if you're willing to tweak--this application can deliver on its promise.

Expose Exposed

With its latest version of VideoStudio Pro, Corel is aiming to crack the Web video production nut. VideoStudio Pro X5 ($80 as of April 30, 2012) is a video-editing application capable of handling everything from start to finish, supplying all that you need to produce videos that you can host, and that play in any HTML 5-compliant browser. But you'll need a computer with one of the latest CPUs to produce cutting-edge video.

HTML 5--What's Hot for Video

Illustration by Neil StevensMake Your Gmail Work for You

Your time is valuable. On the Gmail team, we work hard to offer a user ex­­perience that won't bog you down. But we also want to share some tips for be­­ing even more productive with Gmail.

Alex Gawley, Gmail Product ManagerFocus on search, not folders: Google was built on search, and we've aimed to bring that same search experience to Gmail. Studies show that users save time when they search for an email instead of categorizing it into a folder. In Gmail, you can quickly find the exact message you want by typing keywords into the search box, or you can rely on the program's search autocomplete to specify the attributes you want (try typing 'from:[sender]' or 'has photos').

If the results of a new PCWorld/Macworld survey are any guide, the forthcoming iPhone 5 with LTE is going to be a big hit.

Large numbers of people plan to buy or upgrade to the first 4G iPhone, many of them citing the new LTE wireless technology as a main reason, the survey suggests.

PC owners know that every computer has a unique assortment of components, applications and peripherals. Nevertheless, certain things--including a host of common PC problems and mysteries--are part of the shared experience of computer ownership. The editors at PCWorld have seen and solved hundreds of PC mysteries, ranging from balky printers to diffident video players to persnickety file attachments. Most of the answers to these tech questions are simple and straightforward, so we've taken the liberty of compiling some of the most frequently encountered PC mysteries into a single list that we'll update regularly. Following each question we provide a short response that summarizes what we know. For a more detailed explanation and some helpful tips, click the links in each answer.

Why is [Program X] always running when I start my PC?

Windows maintains a list of programs that automatically run every time you boot up your computer. Some of these startup programs (such as antivirus utilities) are beneficial, but many of them are not necessary and can slow your PC as they run automatically in the background. Speed up your boot time by disabling Windows startup programs.