Some of you may have forgotten due to all of their recent developments and projects on the side, but Google is still a search engine at its core. With tens of millions of pages indexed, there’s no reason why Google shouldn’t be your go-to search solution over competitors like Yahoo! and Bing. One thing Google has always really excelled in is integrating features of their properties separate from Search, like Gmail, Plus, Blogger, Google Calendar, into Search.

Having unused file types associated with software that you don’t use isn’t a big deal, but some of us are a little OCD with our Windows. That’s fine, and we should have that control. Now, let me share with you two of my favorite pieces of software when it comes to switching up file types in Windows.

Having just wrapped up the 2011-2012 NBA season (with my home-state Miami Heat winning it all, I should mention), one of the hottest and most active times of the NBA year is upon us – the offseason. Rumors begin to fly, free agency starts going nuts, and the smaller and more niche basketball sites are able to weasel their way up amongst the elite by offering quality information, speculation, and entertainment.

It’s not difficult to spend a day downloading free new programs and notice that your entire desktop is suddenly cluttered. I know plenty of people who are very OCD with the appearance of their artsy, visual desktop and they’re simply unwilling to compromise and let a new shortcut in. That’s fine though, because there are plenty of other methods of quickly launching applications.

In my home, I’ve got several different devices that require a constant connection to the Internet. A lot of those same devices are pumping out constant throughput. As someone who tries to balance a life of personal computing, gaming, and business all (primarily) through a desktop, it’s tough having to flip-flop around. First world problems, right?

The world of backup software is very extensive and competitive on the Windows platform. Software like Backblaze, Crashplan, and Mozy are some of the most well-known proprietary titles in this area. Backup4all Pro is a different piece of software in the respect of how how much detail and control the user has over their backups and logs. After using it a bit, I’d recommend Backup4all Pro to any backup enthusiast, novice or not. Here at MakeUseOf, we’re going to be giving away 25 copies of one of the best all-around Windows backup solutions on the web, totaling at a cost of near $1250!

Just this week, I noticed a very popular scam resurface and begin circulating around message boards and similar Internet communities. The Internet is filled with scammers and other bad people. Those of us with years of Internet experience know all about receiving emails relating to 419 scams. They are relentless. You should consider this to be the lower tier of online scams.

Even in the latest version of Windows, Microsoft manages to (probably intentionally) leave out many thoughtful customization preferences when it comes to personalizing your visual experience. I’m not the type of guy who goes nuts over features like Metro and Aero. Even so, certain enhancements provide levels of functionality that are past that of just, “Oh, this looks nice.”

If you want to casually play a game in a windowed mode where you can watch other things and talk to friends through email or IMs, you should be able to. Certain games (most often, ones made years ago) won’t allow us to do that. I’ll try to fix that problem for you and open you up to two different ways

Over the course of the last few months, I’ve shown MakeUseOf readers how they can individually emulate NES and SNES games using their desktop or laptop. If ZSNES and Nestopia don’t do the trick for you, I’m pleased to reveal that just recently I’ve come across what some may consider to be the emulator of all emulators – BSNES.

If you’ve used the Internet for a decent amount of time, you will have run into spyware, trojans, and other forms of computer viruses. Don’t you lie! I’m ashamed to admit it as well, but I’ve also went through some incredibly stressful infections that, in the most serious instances, have caused me to toss hard drives and reformat partitions. For casual Internet users who Facebook and Twitter their days away, this is a huge annoyance.

Great values in their premium services, like Amazon Prime, keep millions of shoppers coming back. It can be painstaking to window shop every other day and wait patiently for the right deal to come around. With Prices Drop Monitor for Amazon, you won’t have to.

When we find something we enjoy on the Internet, we often want to hoard it for ourselves and keep it forever (be it legal or not). The most frequent and obvious of this type of behavior is when people are begging to know how to save YouTube videos to their hard drive. You’ve probably done that once or twice by now through means of browser extension or a third-party website.

Thanks to Twitter, we’re put in reach of our favorite celebrities and other important people. it’s nice to know what Ashton Kutcher had for breakfast every now and then, right? Twitter is still a spam haven when it comes to imposters. Let’s thwart those. Here are six websites that you can trust and use to point you towards your favorite celebrities on Twitter.

Final Fantasy VII is arguably the greatest game (if not RPG) in console gaming history. Unfortunately, Square made it very clear recently that an FF7 remake is not a priority to them (after years of stringing it out and teasing us). All we’ve got to cling onto are breakoffs like Dirge of Cerberus, Ergheiz, and Advent Children.