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Back in May of 2005 Google launched its homepage personalization system, iGoogle. 8 years and some odd months later the search engine giant has decided to shutdown the service and allocate its resources elsewhere. Were you a fan of iGoogle? If so, you may be interested in the alternatives listed below. Most of these homepage sites are relatively identical with only a few varying features. Each one is worth taking for a short spin to discover which suits you best....

When Apple first released iOS 8, it was riddled with problems, then the company released iOS 8.0.1 which made things worse and Apple ended up pulling the update because of dropped calls. A few days after that, the company released the 8.0.2 update which seemed to smooth things over for the most part. Recently iOS 8.1 was launched with some new features and bug fixes. Even with continuous fixes, there are still times when wireless connections fail to work....

Thanks to the hard work of the geeks at XDA, you have plenty of choices for bringing ICS to the Kindle Fire with custom roms. If you’re curious what Ice Cream Sandwich looks like on the Kindle Fire, check out these screenshots below. Otherwise, skip to the tutorial. The Screenshots The Guide Although development has come a long way since release, there’s still a few bugs and downsides when updating the Kindle Fire with a custom Ice Cream Sandwich rom....

First, connect your Kindle Fire to your computer via a Micro USB cable. Swipe the Lock Screen and type in the Kindle Fire Lock Screen Password if you have one. When AutoPlay comes up in Windows, click Open Folder to View Files under General Options. If the Kindle Fire doesn’t show up automatically, go into My Computer and you’ll see it listed as a removable drive. Open the Kindle Fire drive and open the Music folder....

Increased Security for LastPass To enable the new LastPass security features, open your web browser and login to LastPass.com. From the Control Panel, click the Settings button in the left pane. On the General tab, you’ll see the two new settings. These settings are location-based login options. The two settings address IP-based login blocking. LastPass is able to detect which country a connection is being made from, and it allows you to block logins from all countries except for the ones you authorize....

Business users can select from Basic, Standard, and Premium plans, starting at $5 per user/month. Recently Microsoft released an exciting interactive guide which shows Office 2010 users how to “use their knowledge of Office 2003 to learn the basics in Office 2010”. The downloads are 100% free, and you can get them from this page. In addition, the installer is very simplified, and you’ll have no trouble with it....

Set a Lower Video Quality While everyone loves to watch their shows in the highest quality possible, HD is going to take up a lot more data than standard definition. The Netflix mobile app lets you select between three different levels of quality. The lower you’re comfortable using, the less data you’ll use. This option is available whether you have the Netflix app installed on iPhone or Android. Go to App Settings > Cellular Data Usage and turn off Automatic and set it to the “Save Data” option....

Windows 8 Photo and PDF Reader Apps Pictures open in the new Photos app, which in itself isn’t a terrible way to view them. It’s basic, and works fine on a tablet or smartphone. But it can be cumbersome and clunky on a traditional PC when you’re trying to get work done in the Desktop. Windows 8 Reader is also simple and basic PDF app best suited for a mobile device....

Even if you set Windows Update to “Check for Updates but Let Me Choose Whether to Download and Install Them” it won’t pop up a notification. Windows (8) Update Notifier Download Windows (8) Update Notifier, unzip it and run WindowsUpdateNotifier.exe. The utility icon lives in the Notification Area on the Taskbar. It will check for updates and display a notification of what’s available. By default it searches for new updates every hour....

Why is the front door open? My home was never burglarized, but my car was a few years ago. I’ve seen enough movies to know where the story starts. You put the key in the door and then realize the door is already open. Something is not right. Just like with your online account, you need to be mindful of anything out-of-place. Sure Facebook changes all the time, but you should still keep an eye out for things that don’t make sense....

Do you enjoy setting interesting and custom wallpapers for your Windows PC background? John’s Background Switcher (JBS) is a free application that works with Windows 98 and higher. It’s main purpose is to automatically rotate your desktop wallpaper at specific time intervals, and it does so amazingly well. The interface is fairly intuitive, and considering it’s free, it pulls up nicely against the competition. Rotate between local wallpapersRotate between locally stored network wallpapersPull photos from online sourcesCompletely customize wallpaper settings...

Note: Microsoft had to rename SkyDrive to OneDrive due to a trademark dispute with British Sky Broadcasting. More OneDrive storage space is being added because of the increase of users collaborating online and saving documents in the cloud. As well as the fact that high-end modern phones take such quality high resolution photos and videos. Here’s the quote from the Microsoft announcement: The increased free OneDrive storage space is straight-forward....

Microsoft today further extended the availability of Windows 10 S to a larger audience including education organizations which are running a qualifying Windows 10 OS: Windows 10 ProWindows 10 Pro EducationWindows 10 EducationWindows 10 Enterprise How to Upgrade to Windows 10 S for Free from Qualifying Editions Windows 10 S is described as the soul of Windows, meaning, it’s more secure and resistant to attacks because apps – sometimes a vector for viruses – are vetted and distributed only through the Windows Store....

Microsoft this week released Office 2007 Service Pack 2 for both their Office Products and Server products which they are advertising as providing new bug fixes and improving stability and performance. I can’t think of a reason why you wouldn’t want to go grab these installs immediately and get them installed however before you run out and grab them, you should keep a few things in mind. Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 Microsoft Office 2007 Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2)...

In making the changes, Microsoft plans to standardize the Outlook app experience across all platforms and the Mail and Calendar apps on Windows 10. Through a project called “Monarch,” the process will allow Microsoft to transition Outlook to one app built with web technologies. In 2022, this standardization will conclude with the same app on all three platforms, Windows, macOS, and the Web. By offering a single product with the same user experience, Microsoft hopes to “have a much smaller footprint and be accessible to all users whether they’re free Outlook consumers or commercial business customers,” according to the report....

I’m setting using Outlook Mac 2011 on OS X Lion on a home network. Sure there are different clients I could use, but old habits are hard to break. Here I’m starting with no email account set up yet. Launch Outlook on your Mac, you’ll get the following message. Click OK. Click Outlook » Preferences. Outlook Preferences opens. In the Personal Settings section click Accounts. The Add an Account screen comes up....

Microsoft Apps on Apple Watch Microsoft already has some of its best productivity apps available on Android and iOS. Things like Microsoft Office, OneNote, and OneDrive are already on both phone and tablet platforms. So, it seems logical it would want its services on wearables as well for full market penetration. Although primarily focused on notifications, the new apps will allow users to also do various interactions, such as replying to messages, adding new reminders and yes — translating on-the-fly from your watch, which could be rather convenient....

KB4515384 for Windows 10 1903 May 2019 Update As is usually the case for cumulative updates, there are no new features to report. But today’s update will bump your build to 18362.356 and it includes the following fixes and improvements: Provides protections against a new subclass of speculative execution side-channel vulnerabilities, known as Microarchitectural Data Sampling, for 32-Bit (x86) versions of Windows (CVE-2019-11091, CVE-2018-12126, CVE-2018-12127, CVE-2018-12130). Use the registry settings as described in the Windows Client and Windows Server articles....

Microsoft released the Windows 8 upgrade options to a few insiders which I’ve detailed below. Like all Microsoft OS’s, there are several versions of Windows 8 so you might want to pull up our post which reviews the various versions of Windows 8 as you read the details below. Windows 8 Upgrade Options Non-Supported Windows 8 Upgrade Options Overall, the upgrade path to Windows 8 looks pretty nice, especially considering a new upgrade offer for Windows 7 users....

Windows 10 Cumulative Update KB4457128 While it is a typical Patch Tuesday, Microsoft also rolled out a cumulative update a couple weeks ago with KB4346783. And there are surprisingly few fixes listed for today’s update. Provides protection against a Spectre Variant 2 vulnerability (CVE-2017-5715) for ARM64 devices.Addresses an issue that causes the Program Compatibility Assistant (PCA) service to have excessive CPU usage. This occurs when the concurrency of two simultaneous add and remove programs (ARP) monitoring threads is not handled correctly....