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Lots of great classic games have been invented and played over the years, but if one had to be chosen as the standout classic of all time, then nothing would beat the little Italian plumber called Mario, who lives in the Mushroom Kingdom. Ever since Donkey Kong in 1981, Mario has appeared in over 200 [...]

It was only a mere 15 years ago when I was working at Blockbuster Video in Scotland, raising money for my numerous overseas travels. Back then, the VHS videotape ruled supreme, and DVD’s were something that had just been introduced (and were a bit of a passing fad, not expected to last). Now, 15 years on, Blockbuster is gone, the videotape is becoming extinct, and we have moved on from DVD’s to Blu-Rays and 3-D television. Isn’t technology wonderful?

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While dining in our favourite restaurant a couple of weeks back, my wife and I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the customers were on their mobile phones. The woman on the table next to us was on Yelp, leaving a review – moments after putting her fork down. She was having a rather loud conversation with her partner about what rating to give, all the time while the waiters – and the owner – looked on nervously.

When I was little, I wanted to be a trash collector. Then a postman. Then I decide to up the ante and become an astronaut, while most of my classmates were more concerned about becoming soldiers, doctors and professional layabouts. But these days, with advances in computers and technology, kids are more likely to want to go into other careers, jobs that were just pure fantasy when I was at school (I’m really showing my age here aren’t I?).

If I take a quick glance at my iPhone or iPad right now, I can see right away that a majority of the apps are games. That’s because as time goes on, more and more high quality games are being brought out for tablets and mobiles. We all know the Angry Birds phenomenon but how about Tetris? Or Diamond Mine? Or a nice soccer game? With addictive games like these, it’s no wonder that my Nintendo Wii games console is dusty and unloved.

We have featured a tremendous amount of WordPress articles on MakeUseOf and for good reason – setting up and maintaining a WordPress blog is rather easy, including those who think they don’t know much about websites and how to build one. Installing a theme, widgets and plugins are as simple as searching for them in [...]

We all like to bash Microsoft and Windows, but the truth is that they have been around for so long and given us so much software and technology, that we couldn’t possibly imagine a computing world without them. Their software is installed by default onto every new PC (whether we like it or not) and who do you know that doesn’t know Word or Powerpoint? Or how many young people don’t know what an XBox is?

One of my favourite comedy shows has to be, without a doubt, The IT Crowd. Before, the IT department in a company had this image of being the fun killers that stopped you from browsing Facebook on the company computers during your lunch break. Post-IT Crowd, suddenly the IT departments were hip, cool and fun people to be around. What a difference a TV show makes (and it’s set to return next year).

We’ve had Web 1.0 and 2.0. Now we’re into the era of the Smartphone Web, the time when every man and his dog has a smartphone in their pocket, playing Angry Birds on the bus, and doing price comparison shopping in the middle of a store. My wife and I are extremely guilty of that. We’ve been thrown out of many shops because we’ve stood there with our phones and compared prices with online stores to see who is cheaper.

Social media is now firmly embedded into the infrastructure of the Internet. Every website now hoping to be successful knows that they need to be firmly plugged into the social networks and provide the users of those networks every opportunity to share the material. Last year saw a huge flurry of activity and developments when it came to places like Facebook and Twitter, mainly because of the US Presidential election.

Even though I am the Managing Editor of MakeUseOf, I have a huge disability in my life which is clinical depression. It started back in 2002, as a depression related to stress in my job, and it exploded in 2003 resulting in a huge mental breakdown and full blown suicidal clinical depression. It was a very dark period in my life back then, and I wouldn’t have wished those symptoms and feelings on my worst enemies.

Whoever said that a smartphone is the extension of someone’s hand was spot-on. For it seems that everytime someone gets an ache or a pain, the first thing they do is consult their phone or tablet, not their doctor. Take that Doogie Howser. Move over Doctor House. Doctor iPhone is in the room and is taking charge. And I have to admit to doing it myself on occasion, using sites like WebMD or even just Google.

One of the greatest inventions ever made on the Internet, has to be without a doubt, Stumbleupon. Stumbleupon is responsible for people finding websites they wouldn’t normally find, as well as destroying an entire day in front of the computer. You begin stumbling through a few sites and 6 hours later, you’re sitting in a zombie-like state, glazed eyes, finger clicking automatically on the mouse key, droning “just one more site, just one more….”