Ah, the humble keyboard key. Each computer user has over a hundred of them at his disposal, but most of us don’t give them a moment’s thought (except, maybe, to hunt-and-peck if you’re not a touch typist). Using the keyboard almost exclusively is one of the hallmarks of the skilled computer user, but even the nerdiest of users is usually limited to just typing and using hotkey combinations. But what if there was another way to use your keyboard?

Who doesn’t like taking photos with their smartphone? Of course, taking the photo itself is usually just half the fun. The other half (the “larger” half, some would say) is applying funky effects to those photos. Apps like Instagram and FX Camera make it easy to apply beautiful effects to your images, and often have creative names for those effects like “Willow” or “Orton”. Retro Camera is very much like those two apps.

The GPU, or graphics processing unit, is the part of your computer in charge of handling graphics. In other words, if games are choppy on your computer or it can’t handle very high quality settings, it’s likely that the GPU is too weak (rather than the CPU, the central processing unit). These days, many computes (especially laptops) have “integrated graphics”, which means that the GPU is actually on the same physical chip as the CPU.

If you’re looking for a quick way to end up with a beautiful all-text homescreen, you should check out WP Clock Live Wallpaper. It’s not as customizable, but it’s simple, has over a million installs, and boasts an impressive 4.3-star average out of over 23,000 user reviews – so it must be getting something right.

When you pay Amazon some money for a Kindle eBook, you probably think it’s yours now. I mean, you paid some money, you got some content, and now you have it, just like any other book you buy on a brick-and-mortar store. Well, that’s wrong. Actually, you didn’t buy anything, and you don’t own that book you just paid for.

If your pointing device of choice is a mouse (rather than a laptop trackpad), then you surely don’t just use its buttons – its scroll wheel must get quite a bit of use too. But what do you use it for, really? Wait, don’t tell me: For scrolling documents and webpages! If you’re an advanced user, you probably use it for zooming in and out, too, changing font size with a quick flick of the wheel. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t even scratch the surface of what your mouse wheel can do.

You know what’s boring? File managers. Seriously, file managers are dead-boring – they are almost never exciting pieces of software. But here’s the thing – they’re not supposed to be exciting. A good file manager is there when you need it, can do whatever it is you need it to do, and works reliably. More [...]

Today’s post comes from Shira Z. Carmel, a musician, teacher, and designer from Jerusalem, Israel. I met Shira a couple of weeks ago and was quite impressed with her custom phone cover. When she told me she made it herself, I had to know how. Shira was kind enough to repeat the process, and take a photo of each and every step. This process works with any phone – in fact, it works with any plastic surface, really. If you want to customize your phone’s case for a completely unique, handmade look, read on.

A moment of introspection, please: What do you do more often – call people using your phone, or text them? I would bet it’s the latter. For many people, texting is more convenient than calling. It’s discrete, so you can do it on the bus (unless you happen to be the driver); it’s asynchronous, so the other person doesn’t have to be immediately available, and more.

Look at your phone. Now look at me. Now look at your phone. Now me. Okay, how many apps do you have installed on your droid? 50? 100? I bet you don’t even know! To start those, you probably pop open your launcher’s app drawer, and scroll through screen after screen suffocating with a dense grid of icons, looking for the one you need. You could be using Google Gesture Search for those infrequent apps. It’s an official Google app, and it’s free.

A personal computer is, well, personal. Assuming like most people, you bought your own computer (or had some say about what it’s going to be), your choice of hardware likely reflects quite a bit about you. So, what sort of person are you — just an occasional user? A nerdy coder? A hard-core gamer? Tell me what your hardware is, and I’ll tell you who you are.

Who doesn’t like telling a good story? Imagine bringing your audience into a world you created, and immersing them in a tale full of intrigue, humor, and killer action scenes. Sounds like fun, right? Most people do this by writing stories, but did you know you can actually make animated movies to tell your stories, without having to buy any expensive software?

Battery life: There’s never enough. Having your screen set too bright can really drain your battery, and besides, it’s plain uncomfortable. Sure, Android has built-in auto-brightness control, but is there any way to tweak it? Can you change it to be really dim at night or in a dark room? The answer is no, and the answer to that is Lux Auto Brightness.

Along with the recent unveiling of Google+ Communities, Google also announced Snapseed for Android. This free and powerful photo editor tightly integrates with Google+, but is also very useful on its own. It features a unique interface for applying filters, in which you toggle aspects of filters by swiping up and down on the screen, and adjust their intensity by sliding horizontally. It sounds cumbersome, but in use it’s quite intuitive, and the results are certainly beautiful.

So, here’s a common case: You need to share a password with someone, but if you just email it to them, it’s going to languish in their inbox and be exposed to any future hacker that might gain access to their account. Or perhaps you want to share a longer note, but don’t want to email it for the same reason. No matter your scenario, I’ve rounded up several solid ways to get your data across securely and privately.