productivity

Keyboarding your iPad: Best keyboard cases

(Updated April 26, 2012, with two new keyboard cases.)

The one differentiating feature separating the iPad from portable computers such as Netbooks for many people, other than the operating system, is a keyboard. Yes, the iPad has its own onscreen virtual keyboard, but some will be tempted to explore alternatives to get "serious" writing done.

Keyboards for iPads have drawbacks: they add bulk to your bag, and the Bluetooth connection will add some drain to an iPad's battery life. You'll also have to consider whether you prefer a standalone keyboard, or a case that has a keyboard built in. Some cases have compressed keyboards, and others manage to fit a full-size one. You'll also have to learn to live without a trackpad.

For your comparison-shopping help, here are the keyboard cases I've reviewed. … Read more

Fancy pins from your Android device

With no official Pinterest app yet available for Android, there are swathes of users itching to pin their much-loved items while on the go. Enter Fancy, an Android app for another visual cataloging site, TheFancy.com.

Just like the popular Pinterest service, Fancy is about saving pictures of the people, places, and things you love. Rather than pinning items to pinboards, however, Fancy lets you "Fancy" items and save them to a list (or multiple lists). You can search for items, scroll through recently Fancy'd items, or look through the lists of users you follow. It's … Read more

The clear way to task management

This app won't take the place of Reminders or other scheduling apps that offer alarms--Clear sticks to simple list making, and it does a fine job.

The first thing I noticed about the app is the lack of interface buttons. You never hit a button called "menu" or rely on arrows to turn pages (though you will use the iPhone type pad). Instead, you navigate around this to-do list app using swipes and pinching gestures with delightful sounds as you complete each action. While looking at a list, a swipe down creates an empty list item so … Read more

HTC One S and crazy-expensive headphones are the top-reviewed tech this week

Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for. In this week's roundup of CNET's top-rated gear, I'll explore some premium choices, but prepare yourself for sticker rage.

HTC One S shows T-Mobile customers how the other half lives Case in point: On T-Mobile, cheaper phone plans mean fewer high-end smartphone choices -- and by fewer, we mean no Android Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones at all...until now. This week, T-Mo joined the ICS club with the HTC One S, which our reviewer Brian Bennett calls T-Mobile's best phone yet. It's thinner than the iPhone 4SRead more

How to expand Google Reader articles in the current tab

With so many Web sites to follow, I find myself relying on my Google Reader regularly. Unfortunately, I also find that many RSS snippets will cut off right when I'm about to get to the good stuff. This is generally because the sites want you to click on their links. I understand the reasoning behind it (and am guilty of it myself), but this sometimes leaves me with 10 open tabs to read, making me wander and lose focus on 10 different Web sites.

To prevent this, I've started using Google Reader Inline after checking out&… Read more

Pages brings Apple word processing to iOS

Pages for iOS may not be as sophisticated as other desktop word-processing apps, but it packs plenty of punch when you just want a way to produce nice-looking documents on the go. After only a few minutes playing around with the controls, we were able to create documents with stylized text, imported images, tables, and graphs, and make formatting changes on-the-fly, all using the touch-screen keyboard. The program comes with 16 Apple-designed templates to start from, including standard letters, letters with photos, resume layouts, project reports, and many more. With Apple's keyboard dock connected, Pages performed much like a … Read more

Tech that matters: Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 and 2012's best Blu-ray player

Every week at CNET, we test dozens of gadgets. Not every device stands out as amazing or wonderful, and we've seen our share of failing storage drives or -- shudder -- candy bar "feature phones." (That's what the industry calls a cell phone that's not quite a smart phone.)

But not a week goes by without at least a few standout gadgets. Sometimes, these gems shine in a crowded field. Sometimes, they break the mold. Occasionally, we review a high-quality device from an older category that does its job so well, we fall in love … Read more

'Cool' gadgets shine at Stanford

STANFORD, Calif. -- One of the tricks of building a successful company is identifying new markets. So while you might never have known you wanted a digital scent delivery system, a startup called Scent Sciences thinks that's exactly what you desire.

Scent Sciences and dozens of other companies flocked to Stanford University yesterday for the annual Cool Product Expo, a showcase of some of the, well, coolest gadgets, toys, electric cars, and oddball beauty items around. Among the most interesting items on display were 3D Systems' Cube, a personal 3D printer that costs just $1,300 and is being … Read more

With CS6, Adobe tidies up Premiere Pro, speeds up After Effects

Quick access to software features is nice, but there can be too much of a good thing. That's what Adobe concluded when designing Premiere Pro CS6, the upcoming version of its video-editing software.

Adobe was pleased with the current CS5's Mercury Playback Engine, which on computers with higher-end Nvidia graphics cards provides a major hardware acceleration boost for some tasks. But the user interface was too cluttered, said Premiere Pro Product Manager Al Mooney.

"The car on top of the beautiful, powerful engine was not as nice to drive as modern editors wanted it to be," … Read more