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Block ads with AdBlock Plus

AdBlock Plus is a Chrome or Firefox extension that does just what its name suggests.

Odds are you have become skilled at ignoring Internet ads. But every year, advertisers get more invasive creative at inserting ads in places where they are harder to ignore. As soon as next month, for example, ads will appear in your Facebook newsfeed. It's too soon to say whether AdBlock Plus will remove these forthcoming newsfeed ads, but the extension does an admirable job of removing the current advertising from Facebook and other sites. … Read more

How to bookmark all open browser tabs at once

Browser tabs are a wonderful convenience that allow you to browse the Internet without cluttering up your desktop.

Another great, but often overlooked convenience, is being able to bookmark all open tabs at the same time. Maybe you've been researching something on the Internet for hours and have several tabs open, but need to stop for the day. What do you do? Leave your browser up and your computer on until you come back? Bookmark each tab individually? Nah.

Here's how to bookmark all open browser tabs at once:

Chrome Right-click on a tab and select "Bookmark … Read more

Christmas 2011 online shopping return policies

Hey, it happens. You buy a tech gift for someone (or yourself) over the holidays and it doesn't work out.

Maybe that new tablet is just too complicated for your parents or the new digital camera you bought for yourself takes lousy photos. Product returns are as much a part of the holiday shopping experience as buying them, unfortunately.

Return policies can vary greatly from retailer to retailer. Over the holidays, most retailers have extended return periods. Some retailers with a brick and mortar presence, even allow online purchases to be returned at the physical stores. Check out the … Read more

How to get your Ethernet-only gadgets on your home network

Internet and network connectivity is becoming a key feature in more and more home entertainment products--everything from TVs to Blu-ray players to audio components. But many of these products come with a big caveat: they don't include built-in support for wireless networking, or Wi-Fi.

This list of wired-only products includes such mainstream devices as TiVo, Slingbox, most entry-level Blu-ray players, many Internet-ready TVs, and the pre-2010 versions of the Xbox 360. Even pricier products such as AV receivers (including the otherwise excellent Denon AVR-1912) don't necessarily come with wireless connectivity on board. For many of these, manufacturers offer … Read more

How to complain about online-purchase problems

It's a booming holiday sales season for online merchants. As CNET contributor Don Reisinger reports, U.S. consumers spent $32 billion online from November 1 to December 18, according to research firm ComScore.

That's 18 percent more than they spent in the same period of 2010. While most online sales go smoothly, there's always a risk of a product you ordered from a Web site not arriving on time, or a product other than the one you purchased being shipped, among other possible problems.

A reader contacted me yesterday about an order he placed on Cyber Monday (… Read more

Keep tabs on YouTube with Video Controller

Tabbed browsing is a blessing and a curse. It certainly helps with multitasking, but only to a point. I sometimes find myself lost amid a sea of Chrome tabs. Thankfully, there is Video Controller, a Chrome extension that adds YouTube controls to the toolbar.

Install the extension and you'll see a small button (with a purple play icon) gets added to Chrome's toolbar, to the right of the URL bar. Now, if you are listening to music on YouTube, you can stray from the YouTube tab and still have access to play/pause and volume controls. Just click … Read more

How to combine multiple PDFs into one document

Maybe you're constructing a portfolio, or maybe you just want to reduce file clutter.

Joining PDFs is handy now and then, but for those of us who haven't shelled out the bucks for Acrobat, it was previously out of reach. Now we can use PDFBinder, a free Windows app on the Google Code site that works admirably. Here's how to use it:

Install PDFBinder here.  Launch PDF Binder.  Drag and drop PDF files into PDFBinder or click Add file& to select PDFs to join. Select a PDF file and click the up and … Read more

Christmas 2011 online shopping deadlines

Still haven't finished your Christmas shopping? Hey, we don't judge.

But you are down to the wire if you still hope to get some tech toys delivered before December 25. We've put together this list of shipping deadlines for popular places to pick up tech gifts to show you where and when to get your last-minute tech gifts delivered on time. Expect to pay a premium for procrastination, but these places will get the goods to your giftees just in the nick of time.

Keep in mind that the deadlines apply to the 48 contiguous U.S. … Read more

How to set up multiple profiles in Chrome

There's a ton of reasons to love Chrome, but syncing isn't one of them--yet. Google has just built a new feature into Chrome 16 that could make multiple account management much better.

Multiple-user support is similar to Chrome's Sync feature, but it's more of a complementary feature than a must-use. Sync allows you to always have access to the same bookmarks, history, themes, and preferences. Multiuser support allows you to share a computer or maintain separate Google identities without logging out of the operating system. This could be useful for single-computer households or small businesses, but … Read more