Every convenience in life comes at a cost. That’s why things are so expensive at the corner store compared to the grocery store. They aren’t selling you a carton of milk, they’re selling you a way out of a mistake in not remembering to pick up your milk early at the supermarket. That kind of convenience has a readily tangible cost – more money out of your wallet. The convenience cost of other things, such as technology, might not be so readily apparent.

If the Paris’, Lindsay’s and Kim’s of Hollywood have taught us anything, it’s that we just don’t get tired of them. The fact of the matter is that we continue to follow these people on television, then we follow them on Facebook, then Twitter, then, then…what next!? How about apps that are dedicated to helping you stay in touch with your favorite characters?

Batteries are batteries right? Sure, and computers are computers, and tires are tires. Oh, what’s that? You say there’s a big difference between a Mac and PC, and tractor tires and car tires? Well, so too there are big differences between the different types of batteries that are available. Obviously the physical sizes are different like your AAA’s and your D’s, but the differences go deeper. The construction and composition of the charge generating materials can be significantly different as well.

I love video games! You love video games! The difference between you and I is that you probably actually play with them while I admire them from afar. Fact is, I’m still playing Icewind Dale. But that’s not the point. The point is I can still enjoy the presence of my favourite video games in new and exciting ways on my Samsung Android phone. And you can too! When I first went looking for video game wallpapers for my phone, I was vaguely aware of what a Live Wallpaper was.

The quest for getting the most from your earphones begins well before you ever buy them. You might be swayed by the fact that such-and-such musician has their name on a certain pair of headphones, or that these particular earphones looks really cute, or dashing, or whatever. Those things just aren’t important and won’t enhance your music listening pleasure. This is all about the sounds and how they move you.

I have the way to make your online activities more productive, more organized, and even safer. That sounds like the beginning of a pitch for some sort of infomercial product, but I’m telling you, this is a fact! With just one piece of software, you can make a good part of your life easier…and possibly more profitable. This is a big deal and best of all, of course, it is free. That’s right – FREE! Just like my favourite kind of meal. Whatever is free.

HAM radio. If you even know what it is, it conjures up images of grown men hiding in dark places with glowing vacuum tubes and devices with knobs and twiddle-bits. They’re talking across the world about who knows what. They’re part electronics guru, part mad scientist, part excited kid. These are the guys that preceded the computer gurus of today. These are the guys that could reach across the world when no one else could.

Are you content leaving all the cool design to Apple to do for your iPad? Or do you want to push it a bit further yourself? Maybe you saw what someone did with a PC case once and thought, “I wish I could do that to my iPad.” You can. It’s yours, do what you like with it. Just don’t expect to have any warranty coverage once you do.

The odds that you’d find these particular Easter eggs is somewhere between slim and none. And Slim just left town. These little treats reside in your software, operating systems, and even in your art. Since Easter falls on April Fool’s Day this year, I thought I’d let you in on a little secret about these Easter eggs. Really, they are bloatware as you’ll find in a lot of older Windows software. It’s extra code in a program taking up space on your hard drive.

“Does your phone have a camera on it?” said no one since 2005. Nobody even asks how many megapixels your phone’s camera has anymore. With the ubiquity of smartphones today, and the resolution of the cameras they have in them, why does anyone even sell a point-and-shoot digital camera anymore? All you need is a decent smartphone to take your vacation pictures and click a button to upload them to Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, wherever.

Google Reader works and lead the way in RSS feed readers for a long time, but it’s boringly simple, even for Google design ethics. These readers add new dimensions! They add new ways to physically interact with your news. They grow with you and if life does anything, it grows. So, prepare to breathe new life into the way you use news!

For copyright reasons, certain media companies only allow their content to be viewed in certain geographic areas. In plain English, what this means is that they are meanies who suck. And what does the Internet do to meanies who suck? We find workarounds. Before I get to the tools, I’d like to talk about the process of geographical Internet Protocol (IP) address blocking and circumventing those blocks.

Who created the internet? One might think that such a simple question about such a monumental technology could be answered in one sentence. Now that would make for a short, boring article, wouldn’t it? Of course it would. Indeed, I do have a one sentence answer and I believe it to be the most accurate [...]

The other day, a friend of mine got an e-mail from his Internet Service Provider (ISP) about a copyright infringement. He didn’t know what this was all about so he had me take a look at it. What I’d like to do for you now is to break down the letter and address important things [...]

There are a number of free programs out there that you can use to encrypt or protect your files. Some of them seem complicated and some of them are very simple to use. Conceal is a newer program that falls in the very-simple-to-use category. Conceal is meant for use on Windows XP, Vista and Windows [...]