Latest Articles
Simple & Friendly: 4 Great Linux Distros For Kids
Turn an aging computer into a kid-friendly machine that's both educational and entertaining. Thanks to open source software there are a variety of complete operating systems designed to let you hand down computers to kids without worry. Kids love to explore, and computers are a great opportunity for that. Programmers from around the world dedicated to education have built a number of freely available operating systems you can use to set up a computer for your kids, free of charge.
Clean, Fast & Readable: Lightweight Versions Of Popular News Sites
Read the news without using up all of your bandwidth. A wide variety of sites offer mobile or text-only versions that work on any computer, but they're occasionally buried and hard to find on the modern web. There are more than a few reasons to want to know where these sites are, however. Maybe you don't like clutter? Maybe you're one of the millions still using dial-up, and want a low-bandwidth way to read news?
Know How Long It Is Till Something Using The Dashboard Countdown Widget [Mac OSX]
Always know exactly how long it is until...something. The countdown dashboard widget for Mac is a fun way to obsessively keep track of the exact seconds until the greatest events in your life – or anything else. Clocks tell you what time it is now. Calendars help you know what's coming up next. What's the use of a countdown if you have both of those things? Context.
Adium - The Ultimate Instant Messaging App [Mac]
Start using the best instant messaging client out there for Mac. It's called Adium, it connects to everything and there's no reason for not using it. Okay, there's one reason - Adium does not support Facetime. But if that's not an issue for you, Adium is a piece of software you should install. Combine all of your conversations into one great interface, then customize that interface to work exactly the way you want it to.
5 Fullscreen News Apps for Windows 8
Do some reading, Metro-style. A variety of apps from major news sources and beyond give you quick, clutter-free ways to read the news you care about. If there's one thing Windows 8's new Metro (sorry, I'm not going to call it "Modern UI") interface does very well it's reading. The look is clean and keeps distractions out of the way – at least, once you've opened a given app. White space is used liberally and fonts are crisp and easy to read. This was all possible with Windows before, but now it's the norm.
Read Books On Your Android Phone Or Tablet With Kobo
Do some reading on the go. Kobo's Android app is perfect for your tablet or smartphone, and it couldn't be any easier to use. Whether you want to quickly browse thousands of free books or pay for the latest best-sellers, Kobo's got you covered. Sometimes you don't have your ereader with you, however, and that's when Kobo for Android comes in handy. If you own a Kobo, and bought books for it, there's no reason not have this app.
How To Create Your Own Custom Chrome Theme, Quickly & Easily
If you're like me, you've long looked for and failed to find the perfect Chrome theme. It might exist, somewhere out there in the densely populated Chrome Web Store, but I never did find it. So I made my own. With "My Chrome Theme", a free plugin from Google, you can upload your own photos, choose your own color scheme and even share your personal theme with anyone. It's quick, and you'll finally have the theme you were looking for.
Unity Media Keys: Control Web-Based Music Services With Your Media Keys [Chrome]
Use your computer's media keys to control Pandora, Google Music, Grooveshark or any other major online music player in Chrome – regardless of whether you're using Chrome right now or not. Whether you're a Mac user wanting to use your media keys for something besides iTunes or a Windows user wanting something to do with those buttons included on your keyboard, try Chrome extension Unity Music Media Keys.
Send AirPlay Music To Your Windows PC With Shairport4w
Play music from iTunes, your iOS device or anything that supports Apple's Airplay on your Windows computer. If you have a media center running Windows, or any PC you want to use as a second set of speakers for your music, Shairport4w is the program you're looking for. Apple's AirPlay makes it easy to play music from any computer running iTunes or any iOS device on speakers around your house.
Hilariously Switch Words, Internet-Wide, With In My Words [Chrome]
Are you sick of constantly seeing words you hate on the web? Replace them. Whether you hate profanity with a passion or want to rid your browser of every unnecessary acronym, the Chrome extension "In My Words" lets you customize the web by replacing any word with another. It also makes for a pretty great prank, if you use it properly. It's elegant, but also useful for a variety of reasons.
TV Archive: Search And Watch Every American News Broadcast Since 2009
Quickly search for and watch any sentence spoken on American TV news since 2009. It's the latest offering from The Internet Archive, and it simply needs to be seen in order to be believed. CNN, Fox New,s and MSNBC's broadcast schedule in its entirety is backed up here, as is every major network's nightly news programs and news magazines. Just type a term and if it shows up in the closed captioning records, you'll see a video instantly.
Reditr: A Desktop Client for Reddit With Embedded Content
Do you love Reddit, but find the user interface infuriating? Try a new way to get at the best content on the web. Reditr shows you the latest posts from your favorite subreddits in easy-to-skim columns. Even better, it embeds content so you don't need to be a tab ninja just to see what's going on. Reddit is the most efficient way to waste your time online, but what if you could make your time wasting even more efficient?
Everpad: The Best Evernote Client For Ubuntu [Linux]
Get quick access to Evernote in Ubuntu. Whether you want to quickly pull up your latest note from the system tray, search every note in your archive from the dash or browse your notes from a lightweight, simple interface, Everpad is the closest thing to an official Evernote client for Ubuntu we're likely to see. And that's not necessarily a bad thing – Everpad is fantastic and fits in perfectly with the Ubuntu desktop.
Panic Button: Quickly Hide Time-Wasting Tabs From Your Boss [Chrome]
Quickly hide the useless sites you're looking at so your boss doesn't know that you're slacking off. It's called Panic Button, it works in Google Chrome and it's designed for full time workers who actually work part time. If you're reading this blog post at work, you probably shouldn't be. And if you're doing something at work you probably shouldn't now, you probably do that with some frequency.
Parted Magic: A Complete Hard Drive Toolbox On One Live CD
Take control of your hard drives. Whether you want to edit your partitions, clone an entire drive, check SMART data or otherwise manage the way your computer's data is organized, Parted Magic is the tool you've been looking for. It's a live CD with lots of tools baked in. Whether you're an IT professional constantly in need of ways to manage machines or just some guy looking for a simple way to re-partition a hard drive, Parted Magic is simple to use and heavy on features.
Eating Only Dessert: Why Your Information Diet Is Probably Terrible [Feature]
Email. Social networks. Blogs. Online video. People today consume more information than ever before, and typically only consume the things they really, really like. Clay Johnson compares this to a bad diet. "If you only ate what you want then we'd probably put the dessert section at the top of the menu, rather than at the bottom," he says. "I think the same thing is happening with journalism: we're going straight to dessert every time." Tech-savvy people are no exception.
Quabel - An Online, Distraction-Free Writing App
Try a simpler way to write. Quabel is an online text editor that stays out of your way and lets you focus. The number of simple text-only, full-screen text editors that let you write without being distracted is kind of staggering, and all too often nothing sets these programs apart from one another. So what makes Quabel different?
FollowShows Helps You Keep Track Of Your Favorite Shows, Offers RSS & iCal Feeds
Find out when the TV shows you care about air. Whether you want to know when to tune in live or or know when your shows have aired so you can find them online, FollowShows is an aptly-named website where you can quickly check to see a schedule of only shows you choose to follow. Even better, FollowShows offers you both a custom iCal calendar and RSS feed for keeping track of your favorites.