For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
Today let's get really fancy. If you frequently use Facebook to chat with friends, you can impress (or at least amuse) them by adding ultra-fancy emoticons to your messages.
This is done by way of "chat codes"—snippets of program language you copy and paste into your chat window. And one really good source for them is Symbols & Emoticons.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
The more I use Office 2013, the more I like some of the little interface tweaks Microsoft made to the suite.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
I know loads of Facebook users who never bother to check their notifications. You know, that area in the top-left corner of the screen, the one with the little red number badges?
From left to right, those little icons consist of the following: Friend Requests, Inbox, and Notifications.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
OneTab for Chrome.
I don't know about you, but I keep a lot of tabs open in my Web browser (Google Chrome). For me it's work thing: I'm constantly opening new tabs while I research various topics I plan to write about during the day (or even the days to come).
However, as with all browsers, Chrome tends to get sluggish the more tabs I keep open. Plus, more tabs equals more clutter: once I get to around 10, it gets difficult to sort through them and find what I'm looking for.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe
Do you have a video that needs converting? You know, one that you downloaded or encoded in a particular format that's not compatible with a particular device?
Google around and you can find a smattering of freeware utilities designed to convert files to different formats, but they tend to be out of date and of varying quality.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
Windows 8 is a hot topic these days.
Not since Vista has a new operating system generated so much controversy, and I'd argue that Vista wasn't nearly as divisive as Windows 8 has proven to be.
Regular readers of this column already know my position: I don't like it. I've tried it on laptops and tablets alike, and every time I come away asking myself the same question: Why? Why did Microsoft make so many UI changes that offer so little benefit to the user?
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
Right-click the lower-left corner of the Desktop to activate this menu.
Indeed, if you've ever gone looking for the Control Panel, you know that it can be a little elusive. You might think, "Oh, I'll just hit the ol' Charms Bar and tap Settings," but, alas, Control Panel doesn't appear in that list.
