At one time, people actually had to carry around notebooks if they wanted to take notes – remember the once-big fad of Moleskine notebooks? Nowadays, smartphones have made most pocket objects obsolete. Why carry around a notebook when you can just take notes right on your phone?

I have a lot of great things to say about Wordpress. It’s an internationally popular piece of open source software that allows anyone to start their own blog or website. It’s powerful enough to be extensible by seasoned coders, yet simple enough that tech-illiterate people can still benefit from it. We even have a mini-guide for starting your own Wordpress site. However, as with all Internet-related software, there will always be security holes that need patching.

I am a master of procrastination. Perhaps you are too. There are millions of people who suffer from crippling procrastination and it’s a real drain on productivity and efficiency. The weird thing is, many of us don’t want to procrastinate; we want to work at full capacity, but we just can’t. But with a few tips, I think you’ll be able to overcome this beast.

Though there was a lot of hype surrounding Google+, a lot of people who tried it out ended up returning to their usual social networks, like Facebook. However, if you thought that Google+ was dead, gone, and buried for good, you may be pleasantly surprised. It’s still kicking and some communities are actually flourishing on the platform.

If there’s one reason to pick Android over any other type of smartphone, it would be customizability. Whether you’re looking for different kinds of apps, themes, or ROMs, you’re always just one click away from changing the way your phone operates. Did you know that you can also change the keyboard of your phone to something new?

One of the fastest ways to clog up your hard drive is to store duplicate files. Most of the time, you probably aren’t even aware that you have duplicate files. They come from a variety of places: accidental copies, misplaced files, multiple downloads, etc. But one thing is for sure: they can really bog you down.

In my opinion, one of the best things Facebook ever did was to let users “unfriend” each other without any notifications. There have been numerous examples where I’ve regretted “friending” someone, and I’ve avoided tons of drama thanks to this unfriend-in-secret feature. Now, there are apps and extensions that will let you monitor when people unfriend or unfollow you on Facebook or Twitter.

“The Internet is just a series of tubes” as one man so wisely stated. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. There’s a complex architecture that supports the Internet, and data packets need to travel some interesting routes in order to reach you. If you can optimize the paths that your data takes, you can boost your Internet speed. Now, there are some limitations. Data packets are essentially light, and light has a fixed speed of travel.

In an era where smartphone ownership is becoming the majority, it’s hard to imagine someone who can’t (or won’t) send out text messages. When was the last time you knew someone who didn’t have a text messaging plan on their mobile? Or better yet, when was the last time someone told you “don’t text me because I’ve hit my limit!”? You probably don’t remember. And yet, there are still millions of people out there who don’t have access to free text messaging.

I recently wrote an article about smartphone addiction and how it can be detrimental if it’s interfering with your everyday life. One of the biggest contributing factors to smartphone addiction is the ability to receive notifications and check messages at a whim. This is especially true for emails, which fly into your inbox all throughout the day.

Growing up, I created dozens and dozens of blogs on nearly every subject that interested me. I’ve had software development blogs, video game blogs, religious blogs, mini-blogs for team projects, small blogs for my inner circle of friends. You might be running a blog right now, or you may be thinking of running one. If so, listen up! One of the best advancements in browser technology over the past decade has been in plugins/extensions/addons.

“Open source” is a term that’s thrown around a lot these days. You may know that certain things are open source, like Linux and Android, but do you know what it entails? What is open source software? How can you tell if a program is open source? And, really, who cares? How does the open source philosophy affect you?

Assigning names to devices is a small action that has very few real consequences. Whether the name of your latest computer peripheral stays as “CORSAIR 829495” or changes to “Bingo” has no effect on the device’s performance. But on a personal level, naming your devices properly can have lasting implications for your productivity, organization, or just plain enjoyment. I bet you’ve rarely thought of device names as important.

Android phones are extremely customizable and they give you the freedom to experiment to your heart’s desire. One inevitable side effect of this freedom, however, is that sometimes your phone encounters a problem or two. Maybe it won’t boot or maybe it randomly shuts down. Maybe you lost a critical file and now some features won’t work. Fortunately, there are ways around it.

For a long time now, Windows Explorer (the process on Windows that controls everything from the desktop to folder browsing) has had a poor reputation for being a clunky, slow, and arguably useless file navigator. More recent versions of Windows (namely 7) have improved upon it, but there are still a few options and features that are missing. Thanks to hobby programmers, there are a few options and tools that you can use.