What Is the Difference Between a Netbook, Notebook, Ultrabook, Laptop, and Palmtop?
The term "laptop" encompasses so many different types of laptops these days. Here are the important differences between them all.
How To Make Your Own Sticky Header Bar Like MakeUseOf
About a month ago, we introduced a new interface element to MakeUseOf – a floating navigation and search bar. The feedback we’ve been getting is almost entirely positive, internal search traffic has rocketed, and some readers having been asking about how to make one for their own site, so I thought I’d share.
When Reality Is Too Dull: A Look At Alternate Reality Games
Alternate Reality Games are a curious subculture that attempts to bring the concepts of gaming into the real world. Does this mean running around an industrial complex with water pistols? Not quite. The game nomenclature is deceptive; they’re best thought of as a mix between role-play, puzzle-solving, team-building, immersive fiction and creative writing.
Replace Windows Home Server With These Great Free Tools
Microsoft has been implementing big changes lately, and none of them are sitting too well with me. If you’re as jaded as I am about the $50 Windows Home Server being killed off - replaced by the $450 Windows Server Essentials - then fear not; you can get pretty much all the same functionality from these awesome free tools, and not give Microsoft a penny in the process.
Create a Social Updates Wall in Your WordPress Blog With Socialist jQuery Plugin
Socialist is an incredible new jQiuery plugin that aggregates your updates on various social networks and displays them beautifully in a grid similar to Pinterest. Socialist is a jQuery plugin. I’ll be giving full instructions on how to implement this in WordPress, but a working knowledge of jQuery would be helpful to identify typos or errors in your code.
Forget Blogging: How To Power Any Website With WordPress
Have you heard? Blogs are old news. I hope you didn’t jump on that particular bandwagon. Yep, static sites are the all the rage now. I’m joking, of course. There has always been the need for various kinds of sites, but the blog format doesn’t fit every requirement. However, Wordpress is more than happy to be moulded into whatever you want - blog or otherwise - and today we’ll be talking about making a basically static website with Wordpress.
What's New In The iPhone 5? Not a Lot
Apple has announced the iPhone 5, the number increase supposedly signalling a major new upgrade (as opposed to the 3G,3GS,4S). So what’s new? Short answer - not an awful lot. Long answer - lots of incremental upgrades and a few notable new features, but nothing that’s going to blow your mind. Still, read on for the full lowdown.
Who Owns That MP3? Rights & Ownership In The Digital Era
This is pretty new ground - what happens to your legally purchased MP3 collection when you die? When one of the least trustworthy British newspapers around reported that Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple because he couldn’t bequeth his digital music collection, the Internet at large jumped at the chance to spew their vitriolic Apple hate. The story was completely false of course - but it raised an important question worth considering - who does own that mp3?
Are You Looking For The Best Free WordPress Magazine Themes?
One of the great things about Wordpress is it's adaptability and ease of customization. Just download a new theme, and your entire site changes in an instant. It's powerful, yet addictive; the search for the best theme is never ending - believe me - I have been known to spend literally days trying to track down that elusive theme that will make everything right in the world. Never fear though, because we're here with a rundown of the best magazine themes.
Kodiak PHP IDE For iPad Lets You Write And Run PHP Code Offline
Plain text and code editors are certainly nothing new to the iPad - but the Kodiak PHP IDE brings to the table one incredibly powerful feature: the ability to actually run your code, offline, on your iPad. It’s also an incredibly slick code editor, as you’d expect. Let’s take a look at what makes Kodiak stand out. The app is on-sale for $4.99 for a limited time, before going up to full price of $9.99. This app couldn’t come more highly recommended.
Considering A Personal Domain? Here Are Some Cool Uses For It
Even if you’re not a fan of blogging and don’t have an amazing new website to launch, a personal domain can be an awesome tool to own for fun or self promotion: from a customized start page with your favourite services accessible in one click anywhere in the world, to a full on CV or résumé showcasing your talent.
4 Things You MUST Do When Selling or Giving Away Your Old Computer, Phone or Tablet
Here’s a fun thing I like to do: buy an old hard drive on eBay, then run recovery software on it. It’s a little data treasure hunt, and you’ll be amazed at what you can find. Even more amazing though are people who don’t even bother to delete data first; they just sell the phone or throw away the machine as is. If you don’t want to be one of those thousands of people who fall prey to privacy invasions and identify theft every day, then read on. Here are 3 essential steps to take before getting rid of a device.
3 Of The Best WordPress Forum Plugins
At some point, your WordPress blog gets popular, and then people start crying out for a community. I wrote before about BuddyPress, which is one approach to take that effectively turns your site into a social network; forums are another option. There are quite a few forum plugins out there, but I’ve distilled them down to the Top 3 to help you decide which will suit your as an admin and will be just right for your users.
4 Ways Technology is Enhancing (Not Replacing) Traditional Board Games
Despite some fears that digital board games are replacing the real thing, everything I can see points in the other direction. In fact, I’d go say so far as to say that board gaming in general is experiencing a profound resurgence and rise to fame, and that this in no small part due to the influence of technology. Here are four reasons why I think technology is in fact, enhancing the board gaming community.
3 Ways High-Performance Computing Has Evolved Because Of The Cloud
High performance computing is one of those areas that people are skeptical of when it comes to migrating services to the cloud - performance and security are the biggest concerns, and understandably so. Let's look at 3 ways in which cloud computing is really evolving in the area of high performance computing though, and directly address those concerns here.
Google Nexus 7 (16GB) Android Tablet Review and Giveaway
We purchased a 16GB Nexus 7 for $249 which I've been reviewing for a week or so now, and I've really grown to love the little thing. We'll be giving it away at the end of this review, so if you're keen to own a Nexus 7, read on and join the contest to be in the running!
5 Tech Projects For The Mini Farmer
With food prices at a record high, chaotic weather systems destroying crops the world over, and no signs of population growth slowing down anytime soon - never has growing your own produce been more important than it is right now. So as city dwellers turn to mini-farming, technology is playing an increasingly important role in maximising crop yields from a small place. Today I’d like to highlight some of those great projects.
8 Tips For Making Great Use Of The OS X Notification Center
With Mountain Lion came the introduction to the desktop of the familiar Notification Center, ported from its iOS origins. It’s brought even more unity between the desktop and mobile OS, and essentially replicates functionality that’s been available with third party applications for a few years now. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s surprisingly customizable (for an Apple product).
5 Uniquely Creative Photo Apps For The iPhone
A recent study suggests 1/3 of all photos are taken using an iPhone. That's an astonishing number, but simply posting those photos as is to Flickr or Facebook usually isn't exactly going to rock the world. Instead, let's take a look at some of the more uniquely creative ways you can enhance your photos on the iPhone, such as adding text, making a one panel cartoon, taking a 3D photo, or making your scene look like it's just a model diorama.
Old-Time Fun: How To Make 3D Images For Viewing With No Glasses
Believe it or not, you don’t actually need 3D glasses to experience convincingly realistic 3D images (or movies). You just need to make yourself go “crosseyed”. Essentially, you look at two images, and by intentionally crossing your eyes to defocus your normal vision, the two images will converge into one central image that the brain will interpret as a 3-dimensional scene.