October 2014

When Microsoft launched Windows 8 several companies, Google, Mozilla and VLC for example, decided to create app-versions of their desktop programs.

While that did not turn out to well for most who did so, the Firefox Metro version got pulled by Mozilla for example, VLC had to commit resources as development was fueled by a Kickstarter campaign and backer money.

The video player was launched later than expected and is still only available as a beta as of of today.

Firefox users who run the browser on Windows systems have two options currently when it comes to running it as a 64-bit application. They can either run the 64-bit Nightly channel version of the browser or use a third-party build such as Pale Moon which is offered as a 64-bit version as well.

I have configured the Firefox web browser to load the last session on start. That's great as I can continue work right where I left off the last time without having to use third-party solutions to do so.

About 30 sites are open in the browser at any point in time and while that may seem overkill to some, others work with hundreds of sites and have these sites restored on browser start.

Windows users can install two different types of themes. First official themes for the operating system, either in form of themes that Microsoft has created for it or lightweight themes that anyone can create provided they are running Windows 7 or newer versions of Windows.

Second full themes that go beyond what lightweight themes can change. Instead of just modifying colors, wallpapers and other basic things, these themes can modify nearly every icon or visual element of the operating system or add new ones to it.

Smartphone cameras range from barely usable to high-end cameras that can be used to take high quality pictures. But there is more to taking a photo than just the quality of the camera built into the device.

It comes down to having an eye for the right scene, focusing the camera on the right point and tapping the "take photo" button at the right time.

Most cameras support a wide range of settings that change how the photo looks like in the end. From auto focus to color corrections or auto exposure.

Clean Master Phone Boost is a very popular app for Android that enables users to delete temporary data from the device to free up storage space and remove traces from the phone or tablet at the same time.

The company behind the product, Cheetah Mobile, has released a first public version of Clean Master for Windows PCs today.

It is easy to lose sight of a file that you have saved to your computer system. While most programs use default locations to save files, it can happen that files get saved to another location.

The Firefox web browser for example sets download directories based on the server files get downloaded from. This means that you may end up saving files into different directories on the system.

You may save files to different directories on purpose. If you are using a word processing program, you may save financial documents into a different folder than other documents for example.

The Windows 10 Preview is out and interested users can download ISO images or an upgrade executable file to install Windows 10 as a standalone operating system or upgrade an existing version of Windows instead.

You can install Windows 10 in a virtual machine for example if you don't want to mess with a current installation of Windows. With that said, the preview's core audience are businesses and tech experts and it is not recommended to upgrade a desktop system to Windows 10 just yet.

Microsoft has launched its Windows Insider Program a moment ago which lets you test new Windows versions before they are released, and in today's case a preview version of Windows 10.

It is interesting to note that it seems possible to download the Windows 10 Preview without signing up for the program.  In fact, if you sign up for it and visit the download page afterwards, you can only download a 4 Megabyte executable file instead of ISO images only at first.

MatchStick is an open Google Chromecast alternative that is based on Firefox OS. The company behind it is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter and the pledged amount of $100,000 has already been matched less than a day after publication.

MatchStick runs on a Rockchip 3066 dual-core cpu with one Gigabyte of RAM and four Gigabyte internal storage.  That's twice the amount of RAM and memory that Chromecast ships with.