desktops

A little over 36 years ago, Apple launched the Apple I, a hobbyist 1MHz computer often remembered for the classic picture of it housed in a humble wooden computer case with a carved "Apple Computer" logo.

Apple's designs slowly evolved from bulky plastic towers to rounded and colorful products, then solidified themselves in a place where ultrathin components and catchy colors co-exist.

In the below gallery by our friends at CBSNews.com highlighting Apple designs over the years, you may be able to spot when the collaboration between Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive really kicked off. … Read more

Start8 brings back the familiar start button to make your transition to Windows 8 a little bit easier. The first thing you'll notice when firing up your new Windows 8 PC is the lack of a Start button. For design reasons, Microsoft has removed the old Start menu in favor of the new Metro Start screen. Start8 aims to bring it back and help you make your move to the new Windows without compromising productivity.

The installation is light and fast, and setting up takes almost no time at all. Setup will ask whether you prefer the original Windows … Read more

Feeling lost in Windows 8's Desktop mode? Not sure how to get back to the Start screen? It's simpler than you think. We've got three ways to get you back home to the colorful safety of Metro's tiles.

Use the Charms, Luke. Open the Charms bar, Windows 8's new superpowered sidebar. If you're on a touch screen, you can do this by swiping in from the right edge. If you've got a mouse, move the cursor to the upper-right-hand corner of your screen. Wait a moment, and the Charms will appear. Move the … Read more

Fences 2.0 doesn't mess with what worked in the first version, which we loved when we looked at it three years ago. You get the same easy functionality of creating shaded areas (aka fences) on your desktop for organizing your files and folders. It lets you create rules, as you could with the old Fences Pro version, which automatically direct certain types of files to particular fences. Fences 2.0 introduces two new and useful features -- Folder Portals and Desktop Pages -- but before we get to them, let's quickly go over how the app works.… Read more

I don't want to alarm you, but the clock is ticking.

The Windows clock, I mean. Microsoft's new operating system debuts October 26. This means that very soon thereafter, any new Windows laptop or desktop you want to buy will come with Windows 8.

Let me be blunt: As a desktop operating system, Windows 8 blows. It's completely unintuitive. It forces you to relearn the simplest tasks, like how to shut down your PC. (No, seriously; there's no more Start menu, so to shut down, you have to venture into the Settings menu. Seriously.) And from … Read more

Microsoft Word is the No. 1 word processing program, but not everyone has it. That can be a problem if you need to submit something as a Word document (DOC format), but it's hardly insurmountable, thanks to tools like Free PDF to Word Doc Converter. It takes your PDFs, extracts and converts the data, and saves it in a DOC file that can be opened and edited with Word. It handles multiple pages, and it can reproduce images or remove them, depending on which suits your needs.

Free file converters tend to have simple GUIs, and Free PDF to … Read more

Desktop Groups does for Macs what Fences does for PCs. It lets you create tiles (aka groups) on your desktop that keep an otherwise scattered group of files and folders neat and tidy.

You'll find two versions of Desktop Groups in the Mac App Store. The free Desktop Groups Lite lets you create up to five groups; the full version ($5.99) lets you create as many groups as you desire and provides additional viewing options (such as a list in addition to the default thumbnail view).

To get started, launch the app for the first time, click the … Read more

Desktops are a dying breed, but they're still useful for people who want maximum horsepower -- especially for graphics -- at a minimum price.

Today only, and while supplies last, Geeks.com has the refurbished Gateway DX4860-UB33P Core i5-2320 desktop PC for $379.99, plus $20 for shipping. Regular price: $599.99.

This is a seriously loaded desktop -- with one exception. It's powered by a 3GHz Intel Core i5-2320 processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and 1TB hard drive. Like USB peripherals? The tower sports a whopping 10 USB ports, two of them USB 3.0. Also included: … Read more

Coming soon, a veritable evolutionary explosion of Windows 8 devices will be bearing down on you. Big small, tablety, not tablety, full of touch, and ready to fold into strange shapes for your general amusement.

Welcome to the Windows 8 Field Guide, an Audubon's Birds-style attempt to help you identify the classifications and subphyla of this odd new computing world. It's not as hard as you think, once you break down the various common types. Be forewarned: these classifications are works in progress, and there could very well be more evolutionary variants coming soon. But, hopefully, this should help classify some of the multipurpose strangeness you're already starting to see on preorder pages.

Of course, you still have laptops, desktops, and tablets. Some of these tablets will have one of two operating systems: Windows 8 or Windows RT.

After that, the classifications get a little more diffused.… Read more