Sound Sunday can introduce you to new artists and their music, but great bands are best experienced live. It’s always a treat to see musicians perform their art and witness them pouring their souls out. Skillfully crafted studio albums lack that special touch, which only sweaty live performances produce. Sometimes, however, a live recording can [...]

Google Maps are a treasure trove for discoverers. Not only do they help you navigate and not get lost, you can also discover some pretty weird things in Street View, explore data and information in unique ways with Google Maps mashups, or create your own custom maps. In short, there is never a chance to get bored with Google Maps.

Google Maps is the best free tool for all your mapping and navigation needs. It’s comprehensive, intuitive to use, and available across platforms. Since there is no serious competition in sight, you might as well settle with it for now and use some of the awesome features, like custom maps. Google Maps allows you to edit its maps, save them as your own map, make it public or private, and share the link.

Sound Sunday presents free music downloads from a mix of artists and genres. Every edition is carefully composed of handpicked songs, EPs, and albums to form a listening experience. Join me this week for a ride from acoustic folk to electronic speedcore. Your ears will thank you for the exercise. Note that name your price [...]

I’m a huge fan of Dropbox. I have been using it extensively for team collaborations, to transfer files between platforms, and for backup purposes. Dropbox’ key to success is its ease of use, which is firmly rooted in its nearly flawless integration across different platforms. The native Dropbox Android app is great for basic access to files and downloading, but it is lacking some features essential for power users.

Who doesn’t love bookmarks? The promise to remember an interesting website and visit it later when you will have more time to enjoy it. The endeavor would be easier if you hadn’t bookmarked several hundred cool sites over the past dozen years. Fortunately, someone invented the Bookmarks Bar, that space for all the awesome sites you do visit regularly, like MakeUseOf. Sadly, there will always be more favorite sites than space on the Bookmarks Bar.

Sound Sunday aims to please the soul. Every week ten or more artists are featured with their songs, EPs, and albums available for free. This edition is dedicated to rhythm and blues and soul music, a genre as diverse as music itself. If you enjoy this edition, also have a look at RnB & Soul Music edition from September. We strongly recommend you to donate a few dollars for music you enjoy!

Google Plus Circles allow you to organize your contacts and the people you follow into groups.This article provides some ideas on how you could organize your Circles. Keep in mind that neither people you are following, nor people who have you in their Circles, can see what Circle/s you add them to or even that you add them to more than one Circle. So do experiment with Circles!

Is productivity overrated? There certainly is value in getting things done better or quicker and saving time. But at what price? Do some shortcuts let us miss out on essential experiences, the kind that make life worthwhile? I think it’s worth pondering those questions before we plunge ahead mindlessly. Do save time for what matters in life and maybe some of the extensions introduced below can help.

Sound Sunday promotes independent artists, small labels, and legal music downloads. For this edition join me in discovering the many flavors of dubstep. We launch with the incredible Synthetic Symphony and via neo-soul, bass, chiptune, and variations of electronic hip hop, we arrive at two ambient EPs. It’s a learning journey for your ears. Note [...]

Your CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are rotting and optical discs as such are slowly disappearing from the market. ISO and other image file formats, however, are here to stay and are a good way to back up existing optical discs. Once the original disc has degraded beyond repair, you can burn its image backup to a new disc. Or you could give your discs and your wallet a break and just read the data directly from the hard drive. But how do you read ISO files?

Google Plus isn’t dead. In fact, it’s been growing. Some people even think Google Plus will prevail big time in 2013 and they have solid arguments. This should make those happy who are already using Google Plus and are seeing its value in one way or the other. Circles is the part of Google Plus that lets you organize people you know in, well, Circles. To make the most of your Circles, there are a few things you should know.

Sound Sunday promotes independent artists and legal free music downloads. This edition starts lightly on indie folk and rushes into some serious rock and punk towards the end. No nonsense, just great music. What is your personal highlight this week? Note that name your price albums can be downloaded for free by entering 0 in [...]

Optical discs are not forever, but although they are losing significance, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are still a great medium for long term backups, given you store them right and don’t use them as your only backup method. In other words, do keep a backup of your optical discs. To burn discs, you need a versatile utility that masters all of these tasks.

Have you ever googled your own name or that of someone else? About two years ago I searched the name of a friend. I was hoping to find his travel photos, but what I discovered were his criminal records. On top of Google’s first page. Devastating! I had heard his side of the story, but to see the actual documents, including every last detail of court hearings, was a sobering experience.