Being a former newspaper journalist, I can sympathise to a very large extent with the plight of print media. With the relentless onslaught of the Internet, and peoples expectations that “information should be free”, print media is caught between a rock and a very hard place. If they modernise and make their news sites open and free to all, they start to hemorrhage money right away, the quality of investigative journalism goes down and soon that same staff are laid off.

Lots of people, including myself, love their smartphone. Mine is virtually an extension of my arm and goes with me everywhere. But that innocent looking phone in your hand is also a weapon if handled by the wrong person. Which is why it is essential that you put a PIN lock on the phone, to prevent any unnecessary access, and limit what information apps have access to, about yourself.

If you are a regular reader of MakeUseOf, and you like computers & technology, then there’s a good chance you fall into one of two camps – the Nerd or the Geek. Both have their own interests and identifying marks, but on the other hand, there is also a lot that they have in common. The question is, which camp do you fall into?

Internet Addiction Disorder (otherwise known as Facebookalitis) is set to become the big psychological disorder of the 21st century – and it seems we have mostly Facebook to thank for that. Thanks to the social media goliath, it seems that we are turning into a legion of junkies who salivate whenever we hear the sound of a new status notification arriving or a Friend Request being approved.

Since today is Halloween, I have decided to take a spooky look at technology in one of our regular weekly infographics. Don’t worry, I promise not to bite – not unless you want me to. Our infographic today, courtesy of Fixmo.com shows technology and business ideas which have become outmoded, discredited and sent to the spooky dead tech graveyard.

Back when I worked in a government department in 2000, I tried to persuade the boss to switch to a paperless office. I was appalled at the amount of paper and ink that was being wasted and, being the filing clerk, I was getting the worst end of the deal. But back then, the idea of a paperless office was too radical. Fast forward 12 years later, and the idea of going paper-free is not as crazy as it sounded back then. But there are still companies who insist on printing.

I have a nice paper book collection in my office of 800 titles (and counting), but part of me wonders if, in 50 years or so, that library will be a rare endangered collection. With the rise of eBooks, Kindles and Nooks, there is the possibility that we could all be reading digitally at some point in the future, and the paper book could go the way of the dodo and the dinosaurs.

If Dick Wolf is looking for his next police procedural drama series, I have a suggestion for him – Law and Order – Social Media Unit. A dedicated team of detectives who use Facebook and Twitter to hunt down their prey. These are their stories. Clunk-clunk. Yes, I can see it becoming the next big hit. Royalty checks care of MakeUseOf.com please.

Sweden – the land of pretty blonde ladies, IKEA, saunas, cold weather….OK, before you all storm the comments section crying foul (including our very own Tina, who has lived in Sweden recently), I admit that I have just stereotyped a nation that is probably very lovely, and very nice to be around. And what makes them even better (in my eyes anyway) is that Sweden has been declared the country that uses the Internet the best.

I immediately identified with today’s infographic, provided by Realplayer, because it describes my wife and I to a tee. When we are both watching television, we are alternating between looking at the screen and looking at our phones. It’s comforting to know that this is a widespread practice, and not something anti-social, as someone once told me. I wasn’t listening though as I was checking my phone at the time.

Ah, the trusty PIN number, the 4 digits that separates you from your money. We use our bank PIN number in a wide variety of situations, whether it’s taking money out of the ATM machine or paying with our card in a shop. But you would be amazed (or perhaps not) at the stupidity of some people when it comes to the 4 digits they need to keep secret the most. For it seems that a lot of people seem to have this irresistible urge to tell everyone their number.

When I was at school, the method of teaching was watching the teacher explain it on the blackboard and then pray to God that you understood everything they were telling you. But these days, children are definitely pampered with this infographic claiming that gaming-related teaching is on the rise in the classroom. Is it happening in your school? Is your child coming home with “gaming thumbs”?

One of the entries on my New Year resolutions this year is to learn how to code. With it being October tomorrow, I am rapidly running out of time if I am going to make the December 31st deadline for getting started. But my procrastination is partly due to the fact that I look upon [...]

Ever since I went over to the Dark Side earlier this year to get my cookies and buy an iPhone, one app has been completely invaluable to me – Dropbox. In fact, I would go as far to say that if Apple dropped the Dropbox app from its iOS system, then I would be so angry that I would seriously consider going back to Android phones. That’s how much I like Dropbox’s iPhone app. Why do I like it so much? Let me show you the love.

I recently inherited a huge amount of German classical CD’s, and since I spend all day sitting at a computer, my first instinct was to burn all of the disks to MP3 format so I could listen to them on the PC, while I worked. But when you have something like 100+ CD’s, you want to have a ripping tool that can streamline the process for you, and have it done with a minimum of effort. CDex ticks all of those boxes and the portable version is a delight to use.