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Add settings icons to your iDevice, no jailbreak required

One of the big draws of jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad is access to SBSettings, a free app that provides quick access to settings like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, screen brightness, and so on.

If you've ever wished for that kind of convenience without the hassles of jailbreaking, this is your lucky day. A hack called IconSettings lets you add up to 40 iOS-settings icons to your iDevice, no jailbreaking required.

This "app" is actually a collection of fancy-icon browser bookmarks with hooks into iOS settings. Thus, when you tap, say, Brightness, you'll see Safari appear and … Read more

Add jailbreak-like settings shortcuts to your iOS home screen

One of the reasons users jailbreak their iOS device is the ability to add custom settings shortcuts directly to their home screen, or, with iOS 5, the notification tray. … Read more

Logitech confesses to 'gigantic' mistake with Google TV

Logitech is halting production of its Google TV Revue set-top boxes, acknowledging that the whole affair was a financial disaster for the company.

At an Analyst and Investor Day hosted by Logitech on Wednesday, CEO Guerrino De Luca confessed that the Revue was a "mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature." In his presentation, DeLuca in part pointed the finger at Google TV, referring to it as a "beta" product, according to The Verge.

De Luca told investors that Logitech lost more than $100 million in operating profits on the Revue after bringing it to the … Read more

What's missing from the Kindle and Nook? Support for printed books

Having just come from the unveiling of the latest Nook e-readers, I'm feeling more than ever that the future of reading will come in tablet form. I'm already "that guy": I read all my latest books on my iPad via iBooks or the Kindle app. And yet, there's something big--something obvious--that e-readers are missing. It's something that magazines, newspapers, DVDs, and Blu-rays have already figured out.

A way to marry print books and digital ones.

I see bookstores around me closing every day. I'm part of the problem. Here's the vile thing I do: I browse through a bookstore like a vulture. I finger through books. When I find one I like, I buy it, right there, on my iPhone--on the Kindle. The bookstore loses the purchase. I'm a horrible person. And yet, I'll keep doing it. Because those big, bulky physical books don't come with download codes to get e-versions, and right now, I'd rather choose digital. There has to be another way.… Read more

Save reams of paper with iPad app Art Set

My daughter is a destroyer of forests. She spends a great deal of her free time drawing, and because she is only six, she has a great deal of free time. We go through so much paper that I feel guilty each Wednesday morning when I drag the recycling to the curb. And that's just the pictures we toss; she insists on saving a high percentage of her output as well.

We've tried using a white board, but you can't save pictures from a white board and she spends the rest of the day walking around with ink all over the side of her hand. Plus, she likes to use drawing utensils other than markers, including colored pencils, uncolored pencils, pastels, pens, and a variety of paints. She has taken to the iPad, and with the 99-cent Art Set app, she now draws and saves pictures on the iPad, saving numerous trees each week. The only problem with Art Set is that I have to tell her that Angry Birds and DoodleJump are not among her current entertainment options when I hand her the tablet for a drawing session.… Read more

Fix desktop troubles with Desktop Hijack Fix

When it comes to software, the desktop is the best neighborhood, and nearly every piece of software tries to move in there. Some merely set a shortcut, but others "do things," often things you don't want and, worse, can't undo.

You have several options for restoring your desktop settings when software hijacks them, most of which aren't difficult but nevertheless often prove challenging to those users who really don't care what's "under the hood" of their computer any more than they do their car or their washing machine. For them, Random … Read more

Match your browser to your bandwidth on Android

Some Android browsers deliver all the content, while others cut back for faster browsing. Choosing the correct browser for your connection type each time can become tedious--but there's a quick fix.

With Smart Browser Chooser, a free app on the Android Market, you can decide which browser is used based on your connection speed. All it takes is a couple minutes of setup and whether you're on Wi-Fi, 3G, or 2G, your Android device will know which browser to load for the best user experience.

Note: In order to use this app, you need … Read more

Your baby's face: The final frontier

Any parent can use the old "here comes the airplane into the hangar" ruse to get a kid to eat, but why not go one better with "here comes the Enterprise into a wormhole"?

I don't have any kids this young anymore, but ThinkGeek is really making my ovaries tingle with the Star Trek Enterprise Light-Up Feeding System. The bib has motion-activated LEDs on what looks to be a scene from "The Trouble With Tribbles." It doesn't specifically say so, but that looks like Space Station K-7 to me. The spoon is a replica of the old-school Enterprise ("NCC 1701. No bloody A, B, C, or D.") complete with flashing LEDs on the warp nacelles.

The $24.99 bib and spoon set is aimed for ages 12 months and older (insert your own hacky "still living with parents" joke here), and comes with three dishwasher-safe spoon attachments. You supply your own dramatic music. … Read more

How to change font in Notes app on iOS

At one point, the iOS Notes app had one font, and one font only. There was no option for users to customize the look and feel of the app. This eventually changed, giving users three different fonts to chose from.

Changing the font for the Notes app on iOS is a very simple process.

Open the Settings app on your iOS device. Scroll down until you come across the Notes option, and tap on it. Choose your font.

It doesn't get much easier than that.

One more tip regarding the Notes app: if you had multiple accounts set up … Read more

How to quickly upload sets of photos to Flickr

Flickr recently released some handy tools like Photo Session and an Android app for their photo service, but they're geared toward the Web and smartphone users. If you love taking photos that require uploading to your computer, chances are you don't want to spend hours uploading them individually to your Flickr account for sharing.

Begin by downloading and installing theGood.uploadr. This is an Adobe Air app, so if you don't have that installed, you will need to download and install that as well. On your first run, you'll be … Read more