Enjoy Curated Music Mixes And Discover Great Artists On 8tracks

Unlimited streaming music, for free, legally available all over the world, and with no audio ads. Have I got your attention yet? That’s just what 8tracks offers. One of the oldest and best music websites in existence, we mentioned 8tracks way back in 2008, and far more recently as one of several great tools for creating digital mixtapes. Most recently, I’ve shown you how to enjoy 8track on the go with the amazing third-party client InifiTracks. But interestingly enough, we’ve never taken an in-depth look at the 8tracks website itself and all that it offers. That is about to change....

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Google's Mobile Image Search Adds Menu

Google has another mobile interface for Image Search. I've only noticed it in Chrome and Safari for iPhone and it doesn't seem to be an experiment. Google now shows a three-dot menu with options like "visit page", "view image", "send feedback" and "search by image". You can still use swipes to go to the next or previous image result and tapping the image sends you to the page that includes it.

Government Surveillance, Xbox One Backwards Compatibility, Game of Thrones Game [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, a coalition of Internet companies is formed to fight government surveillance, Windows 7 is declared dead, Xbox One users are tricked into bricking their consoles, a Game Of Thrones video game is announced, Creative Commons 4.0 arrives, Google News on iOS and Android is improved, and SpaghettiOs has a Twitter nightmare. Reform Government Surveillance Coalition There's something very symbolic about the tech firms' surveillance reform website not using HTTPS. http://t.co/WpCrPwEnaY — Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) December 9, 2013 A coalition of seven Internet companies has been formed to fight back against government surveillance. Google, Microsoft, Facebook,...

Read the full article: Government Surveillance, Xbox One Backwards Compatibility, Game of Thrones Game [Tech News Digest]

Government Surveillance, Xbox One Backwards Compatibility, Game of Thrones Game [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, a coalition of Internet companies is formed to fight government surveillance, Windows 7 is declared dead, Xbox One users are tricked into bricking their consoles, a Game Of Thrones video game is announced, Creative Commons 4.0 arrives, Google News on iOS and Android is improved, and SpaghettiOs has a Twitter nightmare. Reform Government Surveillance Coalition There's something very symbolic about the tech firms' surveillance reform website not using HTTPS. http://t.co/WpCrPwEnaY — Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) December 9, 2013 A coalition of seven Internet companies has been formed to fight back against government surveillance. Google, Microsoft, Facebook,...

Read the full article: Government Surveillance, Xbox One Backwards Compatibility, Game of Thrones Game [Tech News Digest]

How To Reset Windows 8.1 Start Screen To Its Default

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The Start screen, Start menu replacement introduced with Windows 8, has been enhanced in many ways in the recently released Windows 8.1 update. In addition to new tile sizes, Bing search, personalization options, the Start screen in Windows 8.1 doesn’t get cluttered, as Windows 8.1 doesn’t automatically pin all installed apps and desktop programs to […]

7+ Great Digital Gifts That Don’t Need Shipping

Shipping can decide whether or not your gift reaches its recipient in time. As the date is drawing closer, your options get more and more limited and at some point, sending a package is no longer a possibility. Moreover, shipping adds to the ecological footprint of your gift. We have prepared a list of digital presents that work as last minute gifts and have a small ecological footprint on top of that. The Usual Suspects: Gift Card, Certificate, Voucher Most online stores offer something to that degree. This includes iTunes for music, movies, and apps (now also via PayPal Digital...

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Measure Search Trends With The More Precise Topic Reports From Google

Building on the support tools around Google Search, the company has improved Google Trends with new topic reports. The new topic reports aim to be more precise by taking into account the differences between similar search terms. Google’s own example demonstrates how analogous search terms can skew results on Google Trends. Looking up “rice” on Google Trends could mean either measuring search interest in Rice University or the rice you eat. Searching for a popular term like “Gwyneth Paltrow” also does not factor in the misspellings people might be using to search for the actress. The improved topic reports seek...

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Google Search For Android Can Now Help You Find Information With Your Installed Apps

We use apps to search for information while on the move. It could be the Wikipedia app for tapping into encyclopedic information, IMDb for movies trivia, or recipes from Allthecooks. Google Search for Android now makes it easier by turning itself into the interface for all kinds of search results you used to perform with apps. The Google Search app uses an Open in App button to prompt you to open the right app for more detailed information. The feature is not unlike a search accelerator that saves you time with searches. When you search for a key term, Google...

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Instapaper Updates Chrome Extension With Highlighting, Inline Buttons

Instapaper makes it easy to create and manage bookmarked articles that are synced across various devices, waiting for you to read those later. And if you are a Google Chrome user, then there’s good news as the Instapaper extension has got a major update with a bunch of new features. With the Chrome extension installed, you can not only bookmark a page but also highlight a key paragraph from it, for easy reference when you revisit the article. “Simply highlight a key chunk of text, right-click it and choose ‘Save to Instapaper’ from the right-click menu, and your selection will...

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Instapaper Updates Chrome Extension With Highlighting, Inline Buttons

Instapaper makes it easy to create and manage bookmarked articles that are synced across various devices, waiting for you to read those later. And if you are a Google Chrome user, then there’s good news as the Instapaper extension has got a major update with a bunch of new features. With the Chrome extension installed, you can not only bookmark a page but also highlight a key paragraph from it, for easy reference when you revisit the article. “Simply highlight a key chunk of text, right-click it and choose ‘Save to Instapaper’ from the right-click menu, and your selection will...

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Creative Commons 4.0 Licenses Are More Global, User-Friendly

Copyright law can be confusing. While infographics like this can help us to grasp it better, Creative Commons has been on a crusade to make it much easier for the average user to understand. And with the release of v4.0, licenses are becoming more internationally robust and user-friendly. “The 4.0 licenses—more than two years in the making—are the most global, legally robust licenses produced by CC to date. We have incorporated dozens of improvements that make sharing and reusing CC-licensed materials easier and more dependable than ever before,” Diane Peters of Creative Commons said in a blog post. Working with...

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11 Christmas Decorations You Can Easily Make From Recycled Materials

The holidays. It’s time for family, time for friends, time for good food, and time for shopping. If once this time of the year inspired people to relax at home around the fire, today it puts people into a frenzy of consuming, consuming and… yep, consuming more. It’s not your fault, it’s just the way it goes in our culture. So yes, you may have to buy some gifts for your family, friends, and colleagues, but do you really have to buy new Christmas decorations every year? Of course, you can buy them once and then reuse the same ones...

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5 Ways You Can Make And Mine Bitcoin Currency

Have you heard of Bitcoins — the digital currency that has recently experienced a dramatic increase in value? Now estimated at over $1,200 per Bitcoin, the revolutionary and controversial method of payment has been making headlines around the world. There are plenty of reasons why you might want to start performing transactions using Bitcoins, but before you can even do that you’ll have to find a way to collect Bitcoins! Here are 5 different ways you can start earning yourself some Bitcoins. Investing Investing is the easiest way of accessing Bitcoins. This works in the same way as exchanges for...

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Medium 1.0 Redesigns The Reading And Writing Experience

Launched last year by Twitter founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, Medium has been making waves as a writing platform. Now, it has got its first major update, pushing it to version 1. “With 1.0, we’ve redesigned the reading and writing experience to make your stories look better and have more impact. We’ve also changed how collections work to enable curation and improve discoverability,” Williams says. The team has made refinements to the typography, spacing, and responsiveness of the design, so that posts look better on all devices, PC and mobile. The big new addition is cover images, which lets...

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Patent Trolls, Android 4.4.1, Satoshi Nakamoto, Real Robocop [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, the U.S. takes on patent trolls, Android 4.4.1 arrives with added camera goodness, there’s a difference of opinion over Bitcoin, with China and America on opposing sides, the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is possibly revealed, Google gives you your Gmail data, Twitter comes to dumbphones via USSD, Any.do Cal arrives on Android, and the real-life Robocop makes its (his? hers?) debut. Patent Trolls Begone The first step in fighting back against patent trolls: http://t.co/Tz4k0gN5ph. But only the first step. — Paul Graham (@paulg) December 5, 2013 The United States House of Representatives has passed...

Read the full article: Patent Trolls, Android 4.4.1, Satoshi Nakamoto, Real Robocop [Tech News Digest]

Google Page Rank Update - December 2013

Looks like finally Google has rolled out the second Page Rank update for the year of 2013. This is a major update and I see a lot of fluctuations. Many sites have dropped their page rank in this update and some have boosted up.

If you don't know Page Rank is one of the major Google Algorithm which varies from 0 to 10 based upon the number of backlink's a site has. Higher the better.

Page Rank has lost its importance with time. I can clearly see the page rank algorithm has changed to a certain extent this time.

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Change Windows 8.1 Charms Bar Icons Using Charms Bar Customizer

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About two years ago, when Windows 8 Consumer Preview was released to the public, a Windows enthusiast had released a free tool called My WCP Charms Bar Customizer to fully customize the newly introduced Charms bar. The tool let users change the default search, share, devices, settings, and Windows logo icons in the Charms bar […]

Build A Custom Windows 8 Start Menu Using Toolbars

Is the removal of the reliable, familiar and perhaps loved Windows Start Menu the most controversial thing in computing ever? When Microsoft announced that Windows 8 would be released without a Start button and accompanying menu, there seemed little sense in the decision. After all, Windows 7 was probably the most efficient version of the operating system yet, in terms of how quickly a user could switch from tapping the Start button to finding the file they needed or running their preferred task. To drop the vast number of possibilities that found a home in the Start Menu was an...

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Auto Awesome, Winter Special

This is beautiful and clever. Google+ added 2 auto awesome effects just in time for Christmas.

1) Twinkle: upload a new photo of something that sparkles (like a Christmas tree or a chandelier), and we'll gift you a version with lights that actually twinkle.



2) Snow: upload a new photo with snow to Google+, and we'll gift you a version with snow that’s actually falling.

Here are 2 examples:

Please note that this only works for new photos. Check the animations generated for other Google+ users: #AutoAwesomeTwinkle and #AutoAwesomeSnowGlobe.

Export Gmail and Google Calendar Data

Google Takeout now lets you export your calendars and it will soon add a similar feature for Gmail. The calendar exporting feature is not new - you could find it in the Google Calendar settings, but it's nice to see that Google Takeout gets more comprehensive and adds support for new services.



The Gmail exporting feature is completely new and it will be gradually released next month. It will let you download a big MBOX file you can import in mail clients like Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail. You can also use this feature to backup your Gmail messages and read them offline.

"You can download all of your mail and calendars or choose a subset of labels and calendars. You can also download a single archive file for multiple products with a copy of your Gmail, Calendar, Google+, YouTube, Drive, and other Google data," informs Google.