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Here you will find detailed, unofficial reviews and recommendations on websites/web services that cover every different category, from Personal Information Managers, to Image Editors to Desktop Managers…and more!
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Yahoo.com is redesigned with a more modern, but still very busy, look
Do people still use Yahoo? Apparently, seeing as Yahoo.com is still one of the top five destinations on the web. However, Yahoo is quickly losing its readers to the competition and new CEO Marissa Mayor wants to change that. One way Mayor feels will retain readers is a modern modern [...]
Read More »FTC is going to sue Google for anti-competitive behavior, according to reports
When I say “Google dominates search” no one is likely to disagree with me because it is true — Google is the most popular search engine around the world (on an aggregate basis — some countries, like China, prefer other search engines). When you dominate one industry, there are bound [...]
Read More »New Box.net promo gives free 25 GB of online cloud storage to new users
2012 has seen Box.net offer various different promotions to entice users to pick its cloud storage/backup service over the competition, namely Dropbox and Google Drive. If you have not yet jumped on any of the previous promotions, there is another Box.net promo on the horizon courtesy of a partnership between [...]
Read More »[Web] No need for desktop office suites when you can use Microsoft Office Web Apps for free
If you are tired of paying hundreds of dollars for Microsoft Office, don’t want a desktop office suite, or don’t like Google Docs then Microsoft Office Web Apps is for you.
What is it and what does it do
Main Functionality
With Microsoft Office Web Apps you can use Word, [...]
Read More »Google is sued for showing ads in Gmail based on email content
For a long time now Google has been showing ads to Gmail users, with many of these ads being specifically targeted based on the content of emails. Google has embedded this right to serve ads based on email content into Gmail’s terms of use. Anyone that uses Gmail consents to [...]
Read More »YouTube modifies content removal system to be more pro-user, gives us hope in the age of excessive copyright claims
YouTube has a system in place called ‘Content ID’ which provides content/copyright owners an automated way to force the removal of YouTube videos (or monetization of the videos) that contain copyrighted audio or video. Up until now, it was very hard to fight back when your YouTube video was removed [...]
Read More »MPAA chief wants everyone to know four-strikes-you-are-out anti-piracy scheme lives on, even if SOPA and PIPA are dead
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) are two acts that were proposed in the United States Congress as an attempt to fight online piracy. Because of their ruthless nature, the acts met with a lot of backlash from now only Web 2.0 companies but also many [...]
Read More »1 out of 7 people in the world (aka 1 billion people) use Facebook
The human population of Earth is estimated at just under 7 billion. (to be exact, the World Bank estimated our population at 6,973,738,433 in 2011.) 1 billion of these 7 billion humanoids are “actively” using Facebook. Wow.
In an interview with TODAY, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, dropped the bombshell:[...]
Read More »Use the ‘define’ keyword on Google to quickly learn the meaning and proper spelling of a word [Tip]
Yesterday I posted a tip about how Google is the best spell checker, ever. As is typical of dotTechies, some of you posted tips related to using Google for spell checking purposes. One of these very useful tips is to use ‘define’ as a modifier for your search query.
When [...]
Read More »Google is the best spell checker around, use it when you cannot spell a word [Tip]
![Google is the best spell checker around, use it when you cannot spell a word [Tip]](http://cdn.dottech.org/media/2012/10/2012-10-02_004000-290x160.png)
I am notoriously bad at spelling. I heavily depend on spell check when writing articles. Most of the times, the spell checker built into WordPress and Firefox work well enough. However, there are times that I have absolute no idea about how to spell a word, so I sound it [...]
Read More »Google has modified the layout of Google.com, making it look more like Bing — anyone else see it?
Over the years people have accused Bing of copying Google, or at least making changes to Bing that make it appear to be more Google-ish. With a new change to Google.com, it may actually be Google copying Bing.
I was running a search query on Google.com when I noticed the [...]
Read More »Government of Canada financially supports The Pirate Bay…
…by mistake, that is. The Canadian government’s Department of Finance has been running ads on the Internet in support of its “Economic Action Plan”. One on these ads made its way to The Pirate Bay. Since The Pirate Bay makes it money off advertising, this means the Canadian government essentially [...]
Read More »Butthurt iSheep accuse Google of concocting a fake address to make iOS Maps look bad
What happens when Apple stumbles with a product release? The competition take advantage of the opportunity, of course. One such example is everyone from Nokia to Samsung poking fun at the failure of iOS Maps. Apparently there is only so much iSheep can take because they are now hitting back, [...]
Read More »IEEE, a group of tech experts, leaks almost 100,000 usernames and passwords — login information for Google, Apple, and Samsung employees
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (aka IEEE) describes itself as “the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology”. The IEEE is not only home to many big names in the scientific and engineering community but many IEEE members are also employees of big tech firms (Google, [...]
Read More »Fake “Microsoft Windows Update” e-mail will steal your Gmail, Windows Live, Yahoo, or AOL passwords — be careful
E-mail threats are a non-stop nuisance. After the recent “Important Changes to Microsoft Services Agreement” malicious e-mail, we have another swipe at Windows users. This time the e-mail comes in the form of a phishing attack.
An e-mail from “privacy@microsoft.com” with the subject of “Microsoft Windows Update” is hitting inboxes [...]
Read More »For years, Microsoft has been secretly limiting online passwords to 16 characters — despite leading users to believe otherwise
When you register for a new Outlook.com e-mail address, you are told your password can be a maximum of sixteen characters. While there are, of course, security implications with limiting passwords to sixteen characters, what is worse is how Microsoft has been lying to us for years.
You see while [...]
Read More »Create eBooks (PDF, ePub, and more) out of Wikipedia articles with Book Creator
Thanks to the popularity of always-on broadband and mobile devices, Wikipedia is only a click away for many people. However, what if you want to be able to access Wikipedia offline. Or, maybe print Wikipedia articles. What do you do? There are, of course, many options to download Wikipedia for [...]
Read More »Interactive chart tells you how major tech companies make money, such as selling your data or using ads
If a company is not directly selling products or serving ads, sometimes it can be difficult to figure out how a company is making money. An interactive chart by Seer Interactive looks to help you better understand how major tech companies make money.
The chart, which is viewable from any [...]
Read More »Did you know it is legal to download copyrighted content (aka file sharing) for personal use in some countries?
As the noose tightens around file sharing in many countries, do you know there are some countries in which you can legally download movies, TV shows, music, programs, video games, etc. as long as it is for personal use? No, no not “third-world” developing nations. Despite lax laws, most developing [...]
Read More »Emoticons turn thirty, first appeared in an e-mail thirty years ago
If I were to ask you how emoticons came to be, what would you say? Would you be able to tell me that emoticons came into being on September 19, 1982 when Professor Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University sent an e-mail suggesting the use of a “sideways” smile? Don’t [...]
Read More »If you received an e-mail containing nude photos of your favorite celebrity, would you open it?
The scenario I present to you is simple. You are sitting at home or work and you receive an e-mail in your inbox claiming to contain nude videos or pictures of your favorite celebrity. Would you open it? Apparently 996 Taiwanese government workers would.
The government of New Taipei, Taiwan [...]
Read More »Seemingly real Microsoft e-mail is spreading malware, be careful
Whether it be through Windows or its online services, Microsoft touches the lives of many, many people around the world on a daily basis. So when an e-mail from “Microsoft <servicenotification@email.microsoft.com>” with the subject of “Important Changes to Microsoft Services Agreement” magically appears in the inbox [...]
Read More »Google’s reverse image search is an extremely useful tool for finding the origin of images or photos
We all know about Google Images, the image search engine by El Goog. But do we all know about Google’s reverse image search engine? I for one didn’t until a day or two ago but once I learned of it, I started using it and so far it has been [...]
Read More »New exploit allows hackers to hijack HTTPS connections
Last week researchers unveiled a new exploit that allows the hijacking of HTTPS connections, the type of connections the world relies on for secure data transfer over the Internet.
Dubbed CRIME (Compression Ratio Info-leak Made Easy), the hack exploits vulnerabilities in Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) [...]
Read More »Is free speech dead? UK court convicts teenager for posting “disrespectful” message on Facebook
On March 6, 2012 six British soldiers were killed in the Lashkar Gah area of Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device (IED). Two days after this incident Azhar Ahmed — a 19 year old from West Yorkshire — posted the message “all soldiers should die and go to hell” on [...]
Read More »Facebook is building a search engine, will give Google a run for its money
TechCrunch, a technology blog, holds regular ‘Disrupt’ conferences where a bunch of geeks gather to talk about geeky stuff. At the most recent ongoing conference in San Francisco, TechCrunch interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook. The interview itself is roughly 30 minutes long and has a good [...]
Read More »Google censors The Pirate Bay in Google Search’s ‘Instant’ and ‘Autocomplete’ features
Google has a list of words it likes to censor from Google Search’s ‘Instant’ (i.e. how search results are shown as you type search queries) and ‘Autocomplete’ (i.e. how Google recommends search queries based on what you have typed so far). While there is no official, publicly available list of [...]
Stop Google Calendar spam by disabling automatic invites [Tip]
You might have noticed that large quantities of spam are becoming an issue with many Google Calendar accounts. Many users have complained about events showing up in their calendar that they don’t know about or never intend on attending. Thankfully, there is a solution to this ongoing rampant annoyance.
If [...]
Read More »Big business gets security researcher booted off MediaFire for violating copyrights, something she denies doing
In today’s day and age, online piracy is done in one of two ways, torrents or file lockers. Either content is illegally shared via torrents or it is stored in an online file locker (aka cloud storage service) and downloaded. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is an American law that [...]
Read More »Google Docs is being used for phishing attacks
Phishing is when some scumbag attempts to trick someone into revealing some type of information, typically a username and password, by posing as a legitimate entity. Often times the best way to realize you are being phished is to note that you are not on a legitimate website by looking [...]
Read More »People who torrent are monitored, recorded within 3 hours of download [Study]
Do you enjoy the occasional movie off of The Pirate Bay? Or maybe you prefer a “private” torrent club? As it turns out, regardless of if you are torrenting off The Pirate Bay or exclusive, members-only torrent clubs, your IP address is not safe.
Dr. Tom Chothia and other computer [...]
Read More »VirusTotal is now owned by Google — Google just bought VirusTotal
You know that delightful service that allows users to scan files of up to 32 MB in size with 40+ anti-virus, anti-malware engines? Yeah, VirusTotal is what I am talking about. It seems like Google now owns them: according to a blog post made by VirusTotal on Friday, Google has [...]
Read More »Study shows people prefer Bing over Google, Microsoft challenges you to take ‘Bing It On’ test
During their “ongoing tests to measure our relevancy, assess customer feedback and satisfaction, and examine our product in many different ways”, Microsoft discovered that “Bing was beating Google in our search relevancy tests” (surprise, surprise). Microsoft says they followed the trends for a few months then hired an independent third [...]
Read More »Zynga rolls out FarmVille 2, a welcome update to the classic Facebook game
You’ve suddenly been made aware that your family owns an old farm at the end of the road above, and you decide (for some reason) to single-handedly bring it back up to operating condition. This is the premise behind Zynga’s latest offering, the creatively named FarmVille 2. I can [...]
Read More »Apple planning on launching streaming radio service, to take a bite out of the likes of Pandora and Spotify [Rumor]
Ever since my fiancee turned me on to Spotify, I’ve been hooked on streaming radio.
No, I didn’t come into it with Pandora like so many others. In fact, I’ve been known to resist new technologies and services until they’re proven. And from what I heard, Spotify could do no [...]
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