Unless you’re either really lucky in life (and use cards everywhere you go) or really unlucky in life (and have no money to spend) then you will use cold, hard cash on a weekly basis. Money is usually a physical object, with coins and notes weighing down your pockets. But it isn’t always physical. Some currencies are virtual, existing in the digital realm but having no weight or substance. Bitcoin is one such virtual currency

Life can be depressing at times. I don’t care who you are or how good your life is, there is always the chance that something or someone can knock you off your happy pedestal and bring you down for a while. That’s why we all need to laugh. Uproariously. On a daily basis. After all, laughter is the best medicine. With the possible exception of antibiotics. With this in mind we all need to seek out sources of laughter each and every day.

With April 2013 rapidly passing by it already feels like April Fools’ Day was an age ago. Perhaps this is because the pranks pulled by tech companies were so lame that none are memorable enough to stick with us for more than a few days. Or perhaps I’m an aging misanthrope who needs to let his hair down once in a while. It’s possible. I guess. Real-world April Fools’ Day pranks seem to be lessening in popularity these days.

I’m passionate about music. I couldn’t live without it, valuing the time spent listening to my favorite tunes. I primarily listen to music while I’m working, and I strongly recommend it to those who don’t have bosses breathing down their necks for 8 hours a day. Others listen to music while they’re working out, others still while they’re entertaining guests. That’s the thing about music; everybody has their own preferences.

It’s now April, which means the one day of the year which celebrates jokers, pranksters, and trolls is over for another 12 months. I am of course referring to April Fools’ Day, an invented holiday that falls on April 1 each year. Some people love it, others hate it; there is very little middle ground. In the real world most people don’t bother playing tricks on people for April Fools’, a fact we should all be grateful for.

The Chromebook is a form factor that splits opinion, as we previously discovered when we asked you what you thought of the netbook-like devices from Google. However, the Chromebook isn’t going away anytime soon, with Google expanding the number of markets it’s selling Chromebooks in. What follows are Web resources that could prove invaluable to any Chromebook owner.

April Fools’ Day is, depending on your individual point of view, either a pathetic waste of everyone’s time and energy that you try to avoid as much as possible or 24 hours of fun that marks a welcome break from the doom and gloom which dominates the rest of the year. The Web was once virtually free of April Fools’ Day pranks, but now it’s awash with them each time the calendar clicks over to the fourth month.

The company which has its many and varied tentacles wrapped tightly around all four corners of the Web recently announced the culling of Google Reader. This decision annoyed many people, some of whom immediately began looking around for alternative RSS readers. The chances of Google culling other services in the future are high, as the company has these spring cleans regularly.

Twitter has now been with us for seven years and counting. This was seven years to the day since Jack Dorsey sent out the first tweet in 2006, at a time when the micro-blogging social network was known simply as twttr. What follows are seven reasons why you should be using Twitter. Even if you have so far rejected the social network either out of ignorance or a lack of desire, I urge you to read on and at least consider giving it a go.

Vimeo is one of these YouTube alternatives. It’s a different beast from the Google-owned property, extolling the virtues of quality over quantity. Vimeo is the place where the cool cats — the innovative musicians, interesting documentarians, and offbeat filmmakers — reside. The videos are presented in a beautiful manner, making watching Vimeo a closer experience to watching broadcast television.

The biggest technology news to break recently was undoubtedly the shutting down of Google Reader, with the search and advertising giant deciding it was no longer interested in providing an RSS application to the masses. The outcry from RSS enthusiasts was deafening, to the point that some of us wondered whether Google hadn’t actually declared [...]

Anyone who spends any serious amount of time on the Web will be aware of Internet memes. At least those who venture into the useless-yet-entertaining side streets the Web has to offer. Those who are unaware what an Internet meme is just need to look at the picture for an example. That’s Grumpy Cat, and those words are what I imagine he’s thinking right now.

A recent article detailing 5 commandments that govern the Internet prompted a rather serious realization to emerge in my rapidly aging gray matter. While these commandments are all jokey in nature – being adages created by people more intelligent than you or I – perhaps the Internet needs a real set of rules and regulations to turn it from the Wild West into a civilized place to hang out. For last week’s We Ask You column, the MakeUseOf readership explored this subject matter.

In October 2012 Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the production company primarily known for the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. For a fraction over $4 billion, Disney therefore landed the Star Wars franchise, and promptly announced that it would be making three new films to complete the nine-film story arc originally planned by George Lucas in the 1970s. Various spin-offs are also expected.

HTML5 is driving Web development forward in an exciting way. It offers a range of advantages over its predecessors, and could (and really should) kill proprietary plugins such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. HTML5 is capable of handling a wide range of multimedia requirements, including video, audio, and, best of all, games. What follows are 5+ HTML5 games to suit all tastes. These are all free, and available to play in your Web browser right now.