What’s Draining Your Android Battery?

What’s Draining Your Android Battery? "Once you've identified the culprits, chances are you can extend your phone's battery life by changing some settings and taking a couple of steps to conserve battery power. "

Software engineer starts two-factor authentication directory

Software engineer starts two-factor authentication directory: "A quick and easy way to see which companies support it and which don't."

Is Facebook going to hit its 'breakpoint'?

Is Facebook going to hit its 'breakpoint'?: "In any system continuous growth is impossible. Everything reaches a breakpoint. The real question is how the system responds to this breakpoint."

5 Free Ways to Identify that Song Stuck in Your Head

5 Free Ways to Identify that Song Stuck in Your Head: "Getting a tune stuck in your head and not being able to identify it, or hearing the best song ever and not knowing who it is by, are two of the most annoying things that plague human kind. To help you out of such musical dilemmas, we've pulled together a handy list of resources that can help you out, and all for gratis."

What You Need to Know About iPhone and iPad Backups

What You Need to Know About iPhone and iPad Backups: "Your iPhone or iPad automatically backs up to your iCloud account by default, but you can also create more comprehensive, local backups from iTunes. Apple only offers 5 GB of iCloud space for free, so you may need to manage your iCloud backups."

Choosing a Secure Password

Choosing a Secure Password - Boing Boing: "As insecure as passwords generally are, they're not going away anytime soon. Every year you have more and more passwords to deal with, and every year they get easier and easier to break. You need a strategy."

To which I propose a modest change: have one good password be your LastPass password, and let LastPass take care of providing the rest of your accounts with very long complex passwords.

App-pocalypse Now

App-pocalypse Now: "... it's amazing how quickly we went from "Cool! Phone apps that finally don't suck!" to this sad, eye rolling, oh-great-of-course-you-have-an-app-too state of affairs."

My recommended Google Chrome extensions

If you use Google Chrome, or are thinking of trying it, be aware of these extensions, which I have found useful:

• Adblock Plus:
  Removes annoying, obtrusive advertising from web pages, but allows unobtrusive advertising. I know, I know, advertising is what keeps the web mostly free, but sometimes it gets to be too much. You can choose to unblock advertising on specific sites, which I have chosen to do on many sites that I like and visit regularly; you can also choose to block specific ad elements.
• Antisocial:
  "This extension blocks social plugins and widgets from loading, as they can (and do) slow down the loading of sites that they are used on. Antisocial was born out of my annoyance at visiting sites and trying to scroll, click a link, etc., only to find that the Chrome was either locked up or slowed to a crawl as these social widgets were loading."
•  BlogThis:
  "Adds a BlogThis! button to the browser toolbar, which lets you post to your Blogger blog from any webpage with just one click."
• And I'm using the following start page/new tab page on different computers:
  Bookmark Home Page:
  "a starting page displaying all your bookmarks in a two list tree view."
  Minimal New Tab:
  "... displays bookmarks from Bookmarks Bar and number of new messages in Gmail (including Google Apps)" and does so without favicons; nice simple start/new tabpage.
• Checker Plus for GMail:
  "Get desktop notifications [even when the Chrome browser isn't open], read, listen, archive or delete emails without opening a Gmail tab & easily manage multiple accounts"
• Email This Page (by Google)
  "...adds an email button to the toolbar which allows you to email the page link using your default mail client or Gmail."
• Extensions Update Notifier
  "Google Chrome Extensions are auto-updated. This is cool, no doubt about it, but how do you know when an extension is updated? You don't until you install this extension." This is important, given the recent revelations that extensions may be purchased by the bad people that want to use them to spread adware/malware.
• Gestures for Google Chrome:
  Mouse gestures are great for surfing with more efficiency. I use this to basically open links in new tabs by dragging and dropping them, and closing pages by drawing a simple two-line shape with my mouse. This extension is one of the few I could find that hasn't converted over to doing bad things (as of this writing)
• LastPass
  The best and most secure password manager out there. Now it *is* possible to have good an unique passwords for all web sites, and this will manage them for you. You only have to remember the one master password. It also supports a fingerprint reader that my work laptop uses.
• Magic Actions for YouTube
  Automatically makes YouTube videos larger and in HD, and cuts ads; many other options
• Neat Bookmarks
  Easy access to bookmarks: search them, open whole bunches of them at a time (for example, I have morning and evening folders with many bookmarks that I open with just a few clicks). Note: this one is clean, I switched to it when the other one, with I think the same name, started injecting it's own advertising all over web pages.
• Personal Blocklist (by Google)
  "Blocks domains/hosts from appearing in your Google search results." For example: I use it to block tech support sites that show the question but hide the answers until you sign up/pay.
• Remove Google Redirects
  "Google adds redirection to all shared links to learn what links you click. This extension removes Google's redirection from all products of Google to protect your privacy & to prevent click tracking. The advantage is, shared links will load faster as they are no longer passed to Google for redirection."
• To Be Read Pro
  If you land on a web page that is too long to read now, or has a recipe you want to save for later, this extension will save it in a list for later perusal.

Why You Could Have To Pay More For Online Gaming Soon

Why You Could Have To Pay More For Online Gaming Soon: "Thanks to a D.C. court ruling earlier this week, we could be facing a future of selective data capping and Internet price gouging, and that's scarier than any other trend in gaming today. This could be the most important issue of this console generation for American gamers (and, really, anyone who uses the Internet)."

10 Things You Need to Know About Windows 8.1

10 Things You Need to Know About Windows 8.1: "This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it will help you get to grips with Windows 8.1 and locate the settings you may be looking for — especially if they’ve moved since Windows 7 or 8."

The End of Ownership: Why You Need to Fight America's Copyright Laws

The End of Ownership: Why You Need to Fight America's Copyright Laws: "Welcome to the brave new world of copyright. If you want to truly own what you buy, you’ll have to fight for those rights — because they are disappearing."

Google Image Search makes it easier to sort results by licensing rights

Google Image Search makes it easier to sort results by licensing rights: "Perfect for bloggers in a hurry (cough) or anyone looking to whip up an image for a new meme, it can pick out images labeled for reuse, reuse with modification, or commercial variants of either."

Microsoft Safety Scanner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Microsoft Safety Scanner: "Microsoft Safety Scanner is a free disposable virus scanner similar to Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool that can be used to scan a system for computer viruses and other forms of malware."

Web Pages: Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability

Minimize Cognitive Load to Maximize Usability | Nielsen Norman Group: "Summary: The total cognitive load, or amount of mental processing power needed to use your site, affects how easily users find content and complete tasks"

Should You Buy a Chromebook?

HTG Explains: Should You Buy a Chromebook?: "Chromebooks are becoming more and more popular, with recent reports indicating that Chromebooks captured about 10% of all desktop, notebook, and tablet sales in the US in 2013. But how good are Chromebooks, really? Should you buy one, too?"

Web develoeprs: Four Dangerous Navigation Approaches that Can Increase Cognitive Strain

Four Dangerous Navigation Approaches that Can Increase Cognitive Strain: "Summary: Some navigation implementations risk pushing users into a state of cognitive strain which lessens the likelihood of them taking desirable actions."

Digital Detox: How to Unplug for the Holidays

Digital Detox: How to Unplug for the Holidays: "But what are the best ways to beat iPhone addiction? Whether you’re trying to study or trying to be a good family member, here’s how you can go on that digital diet."

Digital democracy lets you write your own laws

Digital democracy lets you write your own laws: "True democracy is not just about casting a vote every five years. It means citizens being fully involved in the proposal, development and creation of laws. The Commission on Digital Democracy currently being established will consider what part technology can play in helping people to take an active part in the way the country is run."

Debit vs. credit cards: Which is safer to swipe?

Debit vs. credit cards: Which is safer to swipe?: "While the tens of millions of Target shoppers who had their credit and debit card information stolen likely won't be on the hook for any fraudulent transactions that may occur, debit card users could face much bigger headaches than credit card users."

Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

"The bottom line: workers in enclosed offices were by far the happiest, reporting the least amount of frustration on all 15 of the factors surveyed. Workers in cubicles with high partitions were the most miserable, reporting the lowest rates of satisfaction in 13 out of those 15 factors."