I’ve been building desktop PCs for a long time, but a constant obsession of mine that I have never been able to get just right is the balance between noise and power. Simply put, I want silence and the ability…
Happy 2014! The year of 2013 introduced a lot of cool products and revisions, including the release of new game consoles (Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft XBox One), updated phones from Apple (iPhone 5s/5c) and Google (Nexus 5), a more…
While games designed for the computer usually use keyboard and mouse input, sometimes it can be beneficial to have a console style game pad or controller. One great option for a controller for PCs is the XBox 360 Wireless Controller…
A while ago, I was in the market for a new Haswell-based computer system. One of the common problems I’ve always had is that plugging headphones directly into the onboard audio found on the motherboard (or linked to the front…
nVidia’s GeForce GTX 770 series GPU lauched today, and reviewers seem pretty happy with it, particularly its price point. At $400 MSRP yet with slightly better performance (though also higher power consumption) than the GTX 680, it seems to be…
What is the best video player for Windows? I have tried several video player applications in the quest to find the best one, and although I haven’t tried them all, there is 1 in particular that I feel stand above…
When selling physical goods online, it is always a good idea to send customers shipment tracking numbers as soon as possible. In an order I recently placed at a retailer I won’t name, a funny thing happened where I received…
When you receive an email in Gmail with a package tracking link, as is often the case when getting a shipment notification for an online order, the tracking number is detected (assuming a well-known service such as UPS or FedEx…
Microsoft has been getting more and more creative with advertising lately, and these Windows 8 Training Camp ads released a few weeks ago are perhaps some of the funniest ever. Be sure to watch to the end of each one…
Almost 4 years ago, I wrote a post titled 5 Reasons Why Chrome Can’t Replace Firefox (Yet). Nowadays, Chrome has matured significantly and, depending on whose data you trust, was competitive with Firefox in market share last year, but has…
If you’ve got some math functions that need plotting, you can do it pretty easily with Function Plotter, available as both a Windows 8 app and Windows Phone 8 app. Besides looking great, the app also gives you useful at-a-glance…
I was playing around with Google Chrome 4 (the dev channel release) to see if anything had changed since I last tried it. A quick peek at their release blog revealed a post on Aug 17 that bookmark synchronization is…
Before you wonder how you can fix a problem of a product in another product that isn’t even out yet, let’s see what the hubbub is about. In Microsoft’s loved and hated Outlook program, the Internet Explorer engine was used…
If you have an AMD/ATi graphics card, you might have noticed that the GPU Scaling options portion of the control panel seems to be grayed out (aka. disabled), if you can even find it hidden deep in the monitor attributes…
Oh, how quickly public perception can shift. Digsby, who won 4 out of 5 nominations (out of 6 total categories) in About.com’s 2008 user-voted IM client awards including Developers of the Year, has been one of the much-loved IM clients.…
I haven’t subscribed to cable television in… well, ever. I don’t watch much TV. When I do, it’s usually for a specific show or online on sites like Hulu. If you don’t need all the hundreds of various channels that…
Yesterday, Microsoft made Windows 7 RTM (Final) available to Technet and MSDN subscribers. Download speed reports have varied and there was a period of time when the Ultimate and Enterprise versions could not be downloaded even though all the other…
Backing up data is something everyone knows should be done, but often don’t due to laziness. That is, until disaster strikes and important data is lost. Those who have experienced such a scenario quickly learn to make regular backups to…
The other day, I was minding my own business when I heard what seemed to be a miniature fire alarm. I thought something was odd and went to check it out since the noise was softer than I thought it…
Buying an LCD monitor these days is both easier and harder than ever before with much lower prices and wider selection. One thing that remains a mystery is how dead pixels are widely accepted as the norm by most manufacturer…