Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Today: A Little News and Lots of Helpful Info

Not everyday can be filled with blockbuster news…and thank God for that. I would much rather publish good tips to help you understand technology and to make your computing much easier and faster. I hope that is OK with you. So read on and see what I dug up today. - JRC

Supreme Court holds warrantless GPS tracking unconstitutional

All nine justices of the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that police officers violated the Fourth Amendment rule against unreasonable search and seizure when they attached a GPS device to a suspect's car and tracked it for 28 days without a warrant. 

Internet now active with 2.1 billion users

Sweeping across the continents, Asia holds 922 million Internet users, Europe has 476 million, and North America is in third place with 271 million. Drilling down to individual countries, China is on top with 485 million people using the Internet, more than 36 percent of its total population.

ViewSonic launching Ice Cream Sandwich tablet for just $170

We don’t all need the latest and greatest Android tablets and ViewSonic is launching devices that meet those who want to save money without too much compromise.

Apple's mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement

Over the years, I have read hundreds of license agreements, looking for little gotchas and clear descriptions of rights. But I have never, ever seen a legal document like the one Apple has attached to its new iBooks Author program.

Understanding The Windows 7 UAC

The User Account Control (UAC) was introduced as a security tool for Windows to help standard users perform admin tasks and to encourage users not to run as admin. When any program requires admin privileges, the UAC prompt asks users for permission to proceed. Potential malware can also be prevented due to the features of the UAC. The following tutorial will help you understand UAC prompts, enable a password protection setting and how it will help secure your system.

How the Kindle replaced my iPad...for book reading

There's a case to be made for convergence devices, and for merging every product down to just one. The iPad, in many ways, has been that device for me: I travel light, I read or watch movies or play games or surf the Web on it. It's a security blanket and a thin catchall. Still...I bought a Kindle.

10 must-have Google Chrome add-ons

From a session saver to a social media assistant to a simple in-browser image editor, these extensions provide a variety of useful tools for the growing legions of Chrome users.

How to start Windows 7 faster

High-performance PC hardware doesn't always deliver the speed users expect. But you probably shouldn't blame the hardware. The slowdown may be due to a software conflict.

How to try the Windows 8 Metro interface free

Windows 8 is still just a promise, except for a few folks with developer's builds. If you want to try out the fabled Metro interface on your computer, there's now a solution. The metro7 app changes the Windows 7 interface to make it look and feel like Metro.

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