How To

Take better notes with the Echo Smartpen

Many mobile apps and desktop programs have offered intriguing note-taking capabilities, but the truth is: nothing beats handwritten notes. Typing might be more efficient, but even experts will tell you that writing by hand allows you to learn better, retain more information, and stimulates your brain.

For these reasons, subconsciously or not, many students and professionals still choose analog notes over the speed of a keyboard and searchable, typed words.

But if you're a handwriting romantic who embraces technology, you don't have to choose between the conveniences of technology and the comfort of the pen. Meet the Echo Smartpen … Read more

Fifteen tips and tricks for OS X Mountain Lion you need to know

Whether you have been using Apple's latest operating system for the Mac, OS X Mountain Lion, for a while now, or you are just installing it, you'll benefit from reading through some of the tips below. Some of them are ways to improve on the overall experience, while others will bring back past functionality. Let's get started, shall we?

Preparing your Mac When upgrading the operating system, no matter your platform of choice, it's always a great idea to not go into it blindly. Be prepared, and more importantly, make sure you computer is prepared. Some … Read more

Monitor your PC bandwidth usage with NetSpeedMonitor

Unlimited data plans are being killed off by mobile carriers, one by one. Even home Internet connections aren't truly unlimited. Monitoring apps, whether for your smartphone or for your computer, can help you find out how much bandwidth you're actually using.

NetSpeedMonitor (32-bit | 64-bit) is a small Windows program that runs in the taskbar and displays your data usage at a glance. It's particularly useful for tracking your data usage if you tether your PC to your smartphone. If you're a Verizon customer, you may want to check out CNET's FAQ on Verizon's tethering settlement with the FCC.… Read more

Home networking explained, Part 1: Here's the URL for you

Editors' note: This post is part of an ongoing series and was updated on February 13, 2013, to add information about hubs, switches, and the new 802.11ad Wi-Fi standard. For the other parts, check out the related stories.

As the guy who reviews networking products, I generally receive a couple of e-mails from readers a day, and most of them, in one way or another, are asking about the basics of networking (as in computer to computer, I am not talking about social networks here.)

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate e-mails because, at the very least, it gives me the impression that there are real people out there amid the sea of spam. But I'd rather not keep repeating myself. So instead of saying the same thing over and over again in individual e-mails, I'll talk all about home networking basics, in layman's terms, in this post.… Read more

Four ways to access Mountain Lion's Notification Center

Notification Center is a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion that helps you keep all of your important alerts and notifications in one place. The claim of convenience can only be true if it's truly convenient to access and use. Luckily, there are a few different ways to access the tray of notifications hidden under your desktop. Let's take a look at four of them.

Menu bar

The most obvious way is by clicking on the Notification Center icon in the menu bar. You can click the icon to reveal and hide Notification Center. There's nothing … Read more

How to use Mail's VIP list in OS X Mountain Lion

In Apple's Mail program, there are options for flagging and coloring messages that you might find important, but in order to automatically do so, you have to set up a special rule to identify the message and then perform an action on it. With the version of Mail that Apple ships in OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has changed this to a degree by adding a VIP list.

Unlike rules that require that you set up conditions that act on incoming messages once, the VIP option in Mail is a dynamic filter that provides an easy way to locate … Read more

Print your own giant posters

Anyone who's ever shopped for a piece of art to hang behind the living room sofa knows that big art typically comes at a big price. Even if you pick up some mass-produced Ikea canvas, you still have to contend with fitting it in the car, or paying someone to deliver it to your doorstep.

If you have more time on your hands than money, there are some easy solutions for printing infinitely large posters from even the most modest printer.

The first step is the image. Whether you're going to print in black and white or full … Read more

How to compress PNG images with PNGGauntlet

PNG, a lossless image format, works well for text and graphics, like screenshots. The one drawback to PNG is that the resulting file size can be larger than JPEG files. PNGGauntlet, a free Windows program, can help reduce the size of PNG files and since PNG is lossless, compressing it will have no impact on its quality.

To use PNGGauntlet, first make sure you have Microsoft .NET framework 4.0 installed. When you're ready to start, add the PNG files you want to compress by dragging them over to the screen or clicking on the Add Images button. Next, … Read more

How to print e-book pages

New e-reading converts might be surprised to find out that despite the fact that e-books can be read on computers, there's no real way to print out a page for reference. In the olden days, you could just put a paperback facedown on a copier, but with e-books, it's a little trickier.

Just in time for school bells and syllabi, here are some go-to ways for printing out pages from an e-book.

Remember, though, that policies for the many book publishers vary, so review those policies and move forward at your own risk. Distributing copyrighted material without authorization … Read more