Latest in Offbeat

Have you ever called customer service, only to end the call frustrated, disappointed and without resolution? Or perhaps there was a resolution, but it was unfavorable and certainly not worth the time you spent on the phone? We’ve actually covered in detail how good the customer service is by some of the major tech companies, like Apple, Amazon and others. But have you ever considered that there are things in your power that you can do to change the outcome of these calls?
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The digital age we're now living in has changed our ideas of ownership and copyright. For better or worse. It's also changed the way we do various things. In the field of photography moving to digital formats has made a huge difference. Most of it positive. However, there is one aspect of the switch that may not be so positive, and could in fact come back to haunt many of us in years to come.
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Sound Sunday wishes you Happy Alternative Holidays. Throw a party your way with albums that range from pop/rock and punk to chiptune, metal and grind core music. There is nothing like some loud music breaking through a silent night. Note that name your price albums can be downloaded for free by entering 0 in the [...]
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MakeUseOf may not have been the dominant thing in your life in 2012, but it probably played a part in your daily routine. To think, we don't even charge for this stuff, giving most of it away for free. It's now your turn to give something back, not only to us but also to your fellow readers. It's easy enough, all you need to do is nominate one or more pieces of content as your favorite MakeUseOf post of 2012.
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We asked you, What Is Your Favorite Tech Innovation Of 2012? There was a healthy response to the question, even when the attempts to game the MakeUseOf Rewards system are filtered out of the equation. Innovations were put forward in all of the categories: Websites and Web services, apps and programs, and hardware and gadgets.
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2012 ended up being a pretty disappointing year for some of the most successful and well-respected companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. Tim Cook, Steve Ballmer, and Mark Zuckerberg might want to ask Santa for a better 2013, but it’s far more important that they learn from the mistakes they made this year. Let’s take a look at what went wrong for tech’s biggest companies in 2012.
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If you’ve been turned onto sepia, black and white and the authentic effects of old cameras thanks to apps like Instagram, you might have considered heading for your parents’ old box of photographs to see what can be scanned and saved to your computer. Unfortunately, this is where the headache starts! You might find, for example, that the photos are dirty or dusty; that they’re creased or blemished; that there are too many for you to scan in one go.
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Anyone reading these words will likely belong to one of two groups of people: those who love music mixtapes, and those who haven't a clue what one is. This article is aimed at both groups, and, consequently, at everybody. It offers a set of simple steps that need to be followed in order to create the perfect mixtape. Mixtape veterans will likely already know the formula, but will hopefully gain inspiration from this piece to start curating once more.
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Sound Sunday presents music for the week before Christmas. Get into the mood with a selection of pop, folk, soul, and jazz albums, all legal and free. Happy Holidays! Note that name your price albums can be downloaded for free by entering 0 in the price field. That said, we strongly recommend you to donate [...]
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The end of the year is approaching fast, with 2012 set to turn into 2013 in a matter of weeks, assuming of course that the Mayans were wrong. It's been a great 12 months in the world of technology, with lots of new innovations pushed out into the world. But what has been your one highlight?
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The number of shopping days left until Christmas is dwindling rapidly. So, assuming you celebrate this religious and consumerist holiday, you need to hurry if you want to buy the right gift for the right person. Thankfully shopping doesn’t have to be the nightmare it once was, simply because the number of options open to [...]
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For a programmer or a technology enthusiast, the concept of a database is something that can really be taken for granted. However, for many people the concept of a database itself is a bit foreign. SQL calls, queries, tables, records, keys - all of those terms and more make up the field of database design and database management, and there's not a whole lot that's simple about it.
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You took one look at the headline and thought "this guy is crazy", right? That's pretty much what I thought at first, but as the week progressed I found myself struggling with apps, multi-tasking and spending too much money in cafes (and I only went once!). What's worse is that this article was my idea. Anyone else could have taken it, but it fell to me. Perhaps the rest of the team were trying to tell me something; perhaps I should have heard the alarm bells ringing?
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Sound Sunday stills your music appetite with legal and free downloads from a variety of genres. Our goal is to match artists with an audience that appreciates their music. This edition is heavy on the indie rock side, but also holds gems for fans of ambient, electronic, dubstep, beats, and alternative music. Let it be [...]
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It seems like only yesterday that I was taking my camera film to the store to be developed. Then I would return a few days later to discover that I had messed up a lot of the photos with heads missing, people cut in half, badly lit rooms, red eyes making people look like vampires....and I would end up cursing the amount of money I had just spent getting the roll of film developed. But then digital cameras came along.......
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