Office Remote Helps You Control Microsoft Office Docs On Your PC with A Windows Phone

Microsoft Research has just developed a nice little app that turns your Windows Phone into a remote device for controlling MS Office documents on your PC. The use of the remote app with the Windows phone as a carrier has many practical uses when working with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. With the phone in your hand, you can control the presentation by going back and forth between slides; or bring up supporting Word document; or illustrate a point on a spreadsheet. The Office Remote has been spawned from the minds of the Microsoft Research team and the Microsoft Office engineering...

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4 Ways to Speed Up Your Linux PC

Is your Linux setup not as speedy as you’d like? Here’s how to speed it up. Many computer users who try Linux do so because they’ve been told that the operating system is a lot more customizable and uses less system resources. However, despite installing Linux on a computer and reaping from those benefits, you might still feel like your system could still use an extra boost to truly get a speed-up – even if you’re using a high-end machine. Here are four ways which you can quickly and easily speed up your system to get the best performance possible...

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Hangouts Extension For Chrome Brings Conversations To Your Desktop

Use Hangouts outside the browser. An overlooked Chrome extension from Google lets you chat without opening Gmail or Google+. Back in May, Google announced it was launching a new messaging service: Google Hangouts. This was a way for the company to combine its redundant messaging services: the ever-popular Google Talk, the little used Google+ Messenger, popular videoconferencing service Google Hangouts and (eventually) phone enhancement service Google Voice. There are mobile apps, of course, but no platform-specific desktop version – most users doubtless think of the service as part of Gmail. But a perhaps overlooked feature is the Hangouts extension for...

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Phones On Planes, Sockpuppeting, Female Geeks, Lulu Larks [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, planes may soon be full of people using their cellphones, Wikipedia tries to stop sockpuppeting, Samsung is told to pay up, female geeks are on the rise, Microsoft is rumored to be interested in buying Winamp, Opera 18 is released, Microsoft turns to eBay to sell its hardware, and a potentially sexist app is talked up by the New York Times. U.S. Considers Cellphone Use On Planes The United States is considering allowing people to make and receive cellphone calls on flights. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will be...

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How To Set Animated Wallpaper or Video As Start Screen Background In Windows 8.1 [Video]

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Animated desktop background concept was probably first introduced with Windows Vista operating system. DreamScene, one of the extras released for the Ultimate edition of Vista, let users set a video file as desktop background. Even though Microsoft dropped this excellent feature from Windows 7, there are plenty of tools out there to enable DreamScene feature […]

Chrome's Predictors Page

Chrome has a lot of fascinating features you'll probably never use. Tony Hirst spotted one: open a new tab, type chrome://predictors in the omnibox and press Enter. This page shows some cool stats about the characters you've typed in the omnibox and the URLs you've selected.



For example, if you usually type "y", Chrome autocompletes the URL to youtube.com and you press Enter, you'll find this association in the table. There are also 3 values: hit count (how often you type those characters), miss count (how often you pick a different suggestion) and confidence score = hit_count/(hit_count+miss_count). Check "Filter zero confidences" to remove entries with a 0 confidence score. Green entries have a 1 confidence score, which means that the text is always associated with the URL.

You can find all the internal Chrome pages by going to chrome://chrome-urls/. For example, chrome://view-http-cache/ shows a list of all the URLs requested by the browser, chrome://components/ shows a list of components like Pepper Flash and Portable Native Client, which can be independently updated, chrome://flags/ shows a list of experimental features you can enable, while chrome://net-internals/ is a very advanced network logging and diagnostic tool.



{ Screenshot licensed as Creative Commons Attribution by Tony Hirst. }

Pegman's Return and the Full-Screen Google Maps

I posted about Pegman's return to Google Maps two weeks ago, but I only got the update today. Sometimes it takes a few weeks until Google rolls out new features, sometimes it takes months (Gmail's pay button is an example).



While Pegman's return is a good news, the most striking thing about the latest Google Maps update is that the black bar has disappeared and the new navigation is placed on top of the map. The settings and help buttons have been moved to the bottom of the page.



Here are some screenshots from the "Welcome back, Pegman!" tour:

{ Thanks, Emanuele Bartolomucci. }

GIMP: A Quick Walkthrough Of Everyone’s Favorite Open Source Image Editor

Many people enjoy GIMP as one of their favorite open source tools, and with good reason: it’s among some of the most developed ones out there. We’ve covered all sorts of things about GIMP here at MakeUseOf, but we never really gave a rundown of what it can do. Is it just an over-hyped version of Paint, or can you do some serious image manipulation with it? Editing Tools GIMP has many of the tools you’d expect to have, including some slightly more advanced ones such as: color select burn dodge color alterations (hue-saturation, colorize, brightness and contrast, etc.) layers...

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GIMP: A Quick Walkthrough Of Everyone’s Favorite Open Source Image Editor

Many people enjoy GIMP as one of their favorite open source tools, and with good reason: it’s among some of the most developed ones out there. We’ve covered all sorts of things about GIMP here at MakeUseOf, but we never really gave a rundown of what it can do. Is it just an over-hyped version of Paint, or can you do some serious image manipulation with it? Editing Tools GIMP has many of the tools you’d expect to have, including some slightly more advanced ones such as: color select burn dodge color alterations (hue-saturation, colorize, brightness and contrast, etc.) layers...

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Dolphin, Chrome, Firefox Browsers For Android Get Updates

It seems that developers of internet browsers on Android have been busy as the major browsers have all released new updates. Dolphin Dolphin, the fast and elegant browser, has had the most significant update. For starters, the browser now comes with a master password, giving you one more layer of security. Dolphin 10.1.2 now features Night Mode, which can be activated from the swipe menu on the right. This darkens your whole screen for a battery-friendly and more eye-popping experience. There’s a new option to also customize Dolphin with new skins. Under the hood, Dolphin’s got a bunch of new...

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15 Productive Things To Do Online When You Have 15 Minutes To Kill

We cannot capture time. I think we can snatch it for…a small amount of time. It’s human nature to focus on large blocks of time, and ignore the value of the minutes and seconds that pass by unnoticed. We put a value to the time spent on a large project. We store the fortnight of a great vacation in our memories. But we don’t remember the time spent stuck in a traffic jam or that spent on catching up on gossip at the water cooler. Can we use some of those “lost” minutes and seconds and put some value in...

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Enjoy The iOS 7 Look On Any Device!

Have you installed iOS 7 on your Android yet? No? Well, that’s probably for the best, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get your chance to enjoy the iOS 7 look without an iPhone. iOS 7 brought many new features to the table, which you might be curious about even if you’re not an Apple user. Alternatively, you may just like the looks of it, but don’t want to give yourself over to the Apple side. No worries, we’ve got you covered. If you like dressing up your tech, you can now dress up Android, Chrome and even Windows in...

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Enjoy The iOS 7 Look On Any Device!

Have you installed iOS 7 on your Android yet? No? Well, that’s probably for the best, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get your chance to enjoy the iOS 7 look without an iPhone. iOS 7 brought many new features to the table, which you might be curious about even if you’re not an Apple user. Alternatively, you may just like the looks of it, but don’t want to give yourself over to the Apple side. No worries, we’ve got you covered. If you like dressing up your tech, you can now dress up Android, Chrome and even Windows in...

Read the full article: Enjoy The iOS 7 Look On Any Device!

Microsoft Store Opens On eBay For Online Shoppers In The U.S.

Microsoft expanded its retail footprint with the opening of an official store on eBay (U.S). Microsoft has its own online shopping portal with the Microsoft Store. The Microsoft Store on eBay is positioned as a complementary offering especially as the busy holiday shopping season draws near. Microsoft’s lineup of products like Surface and Xbox, as well as various Microsoft accessories will be available here. Microsoft would obviously benefit from another point-of-presence that could make it more convenient for eBay shopping loyalists. The screenshot (below) from the store’s homepage also advertises the benefits of the eBay experience. Customers can also avail...

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5 Great Gift-Buying Websites You Haven’t Heard Of Yet

For some of us, the stress of holiday shopping is already hitting us in full force. The gift-giving season is a wonderful, joyous time for the most part, but it can be a daunting task trying to find the perfect gifts for our loved ones. Add to that the inconvenience of actually making the purchases in time? More stress. So why not do all of your shopping online this year? If you’re new to shopping online, have no fear: our online shopping guide will get you started with all you need to know. But if the usual online shops aren’t...

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Secure Your Browsing Activity With Private Internet Access VPN [Giveaway]

Are you concerned about your privacy online? Many people are and have taken to encrypting their internet traffic with a VPN (Virtual Private Network). For the uninitiated, a VPN allows you to tunnel your Internet traffic through another computer. The computer, acting as an intermediary, ensures that any data you send out cannot be identified to you based upon your IP address. More often than not, VPNs employ encryption; ensuring that nobody on your local network can intercept your traffic. VPN usage has historically been linked with the enterprise, offering companies a way for remote workers to access an internal...

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Xbox One Reviews, Winamp Loses, Google Newsstand, Scroogled Merchandise [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, the Xbox One is reviewed ahead of release, Winamp gets condemned to death, Instagram arrives on Windows Phone, Google releases its own Apple-inspired Newsstand, a clever scam to mine Bitcoin is uncovered, and Microsoft starts selling anti-Google merchandise as part of its ongoing Scroogled campaign. Xbox One Reviews Roundup Playstation 4 or Xbox One? #HardestLifeDecisions — Joe Ramos (@LaxusDreyahr) November 21, 2013 The battle of the next-gen consoles has now begun in earnest, with the PlayStation 4 having been released last Friday (Nov. 15) and the Xbox One being released this Friday (Nov. 22). Having...

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Windows 8.1 Start Screen Customizer

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The Start screen, first introduced with Windows 8 has been enhanced with Windows 8.1 update. The Start menu replacement now supports more tile sizes, lets you uninstall multiple apps at once, and also allows you set desktop background picture as Start screen background image. By now, everyone who cares would know that Windows 8 didn’t […]

YouTube Easter Egg for Doge Meme

"Doge is a slang term for 'dog' that is primarily associated with pictures of Shiba Inus (nicknamed 'Shibe') and internal monologue captions on Tumblr. These photos may be photoshopped to change the dog's face or captioned with interior monologues in Comic Sans font," informs KnowYourMeme.



YouTube has an Easter Egg that changes the search results page for [doge meme]: colorful text, Comic Sans, much wow, so hip, help plz.

{ via Phandroid, thanks Sushubh }

How to Get Your Identity Stolen in One Easy Step

I recently found a discarded desktop computer, a Dell Inspiron model, lingering by the dumpster. Anything left next to dumpsters signifies that the former owner wants you to take it. Whoever abandoned the computer wants to do someone a favor. Unfortunately, computer donators don’t really know what they’re actually giving away: Privacy, passwords, security and potentially a great deal of money. After giving the discarded computer a quick teardown, I put it through a variety of security tests and found glaring problems – problems our readership may learn from. Stealing someone’s identity doesn’t take a lot of intelligence or even...

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