October 2014

If you have installed the Windows 10 Preview on a computer system or read about it online, you may know that Windows Store apps run on the desktop now if you are using a system with mouse and keyboard.

While it is still possible to enable the Start Screen interface -- instead of using the Start Menu as you cannot use both it seems -- apps that you run will run in windows by default.

When Microsoft launched Windows Store in Windows 8, it was disappointing to see for many that the store carried only applications that users could install on their systems directly from within the store.

Commercial apps could be purchased right from the store which was convenient for many. Then later on links to desktop programs were added as well, but those merely redirected users to sites which meant that the store was not used to download or buy these programs directly.

If you are using the Skype software to make video calls, you may have noticed that it does not offer options to customize the video output on your machine.

Skype enables HD video only on computer systems that match certain requirements. If your system does not meet those requirements or if Skype identified the hardware incorrectly, you may be left with SD video only.

Low-quality videos can be a pain to watch, especially if you have to watch them or want to make them available for others to watch.

If you only have that self-recorded video of your daughter's marriage ceremony, your son's graduation or the last family vacation, then there is little that you can do but to make the best out of it.

Software programs can help sometimes and Blurry Video Clearer Free is one of those programs. All you have to do is to load the video into the application, flip a few switches, and let the program do the heavy lifting.

Pale Moon is a popular web browser that is probably best described as a spin-off of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. It has seen a rise in popularity recently as it did not implement the new Firefox Australis design but that is not the only reason why it is popular.

A new Chromecast update is currently being rolled out by Google that updates the Chromecast application on Android to version 1.8.22.

While many users are still on version 1.7.4, some can also already use the new functionality that the update introduces to the app.

It is now possible to configure custom backdrops using the application. The application supported the casting of photos and images before but only in form of applications such as Google+ which enabled you to view images on the TV.

If you are serious about browser games you may have the Unity plugin installed in your browser of choice. This plugin is currently required to play games that use Unity, a cross-platform game creation system that includes a game engine and an integrated development environment (IDE).

The company is currently working on supporting WebGL due to the fact that most companies that create browsers are moving away from the plugin system.

Ever since I started using Firefox I have configured the web browser to load the previous browsing session. This was not overly comfortable in the beginning as all sites were loaded at once on browser start, but I was able to improve that first by using add-ons and then later on natively when Mozilla introduced what these add-ons offered natively in the browser.

Whenever browser makers tighten the defense systems of the browser it does not take long usually before advertising companies and malware writers find new methods to penetrate those defense.

Some browsers display information to the user when the homepage changes while others such as Chrome may even reset settings automatically when changes are noticed.

If you are using a recent version of the Opera browser, you may have noticed that it is not that easy to import bookmarks from another web browser or a local bookmarks file.

Opera users came up with quite a few workarounds to that issue, from bookmarking a plain bookmarks file exported from another browser to importing into Chrome first and replacing Opera's bookmarks file with that of the Chrome browser.