Services

Since this is a column about "Common Sense Tech," I thought I'd take that name and run with it in terms of social-media sharing. Sometimes I see a lack of common sense, politeness, and manners when it comes to personal sharing. Consider this a "things not to do" list.

Some of the suggestions below are things I personally try to follow. I love to share on social media, but I also try to be mindful of people's privacy. Some of the suggestions come from others whom I asked through... social media!

The suggestions are … Read more

Years ago, I went digital with my music. I ripped all my CDs, bringing everything into Windows Media Player. I didn't start with the iPod. The Rio Karma was my main MP3 player. Over the years, my music library moved from computer to computer. It migrated into iTunes (and into iPods, iPhones, iPads....). It gained new music from purchases or the occasional rare CD that I'd buy. And my music got really messy.

I shouldn't really care that somehow, I ended up with two or three different copies of the same songs. What does it really matter, … Read more

Apple claims 500,000 apps in its App Store for the iPhone and over 700,000 when iPad apps are added in. Google Play claims 600,000 apps for Android. Windows Phone is estimated to have 100,000 apps in its marketplace.

But do the numbers really matter, especially when the "new apps" may be content like video, music, and books?

I'm not a big fan of numbers just for numbers' sake. I watched search engines play the numbers game for years, each trying to be "bigger" than their competitors by having more Web pages. … Read more

I was at the relaunch of Microsoft's Bing search engine yesterday, covering it as part of my "day job" for Search Engine Land. Blogger extraordinaire Robert Scoble was sitting next to me and got a kick out of how I had three different phones going: one Android, one iPhone and one Windows Phone. He then noticed I was running Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro and using Chrome as my main browser. Yes, I'm a mixed-up boy.

I thought it would be interesting to reflect why I'… Read more

Two truisms. Change is good. People don't like change. Lately, the latter one has been winning with me in relation to tech. I feel like the constant pace of intended improvements is making things worse, not better.

I know, I sound like a curmudgeon. I also know I focus on change that leaves me dissatisfied far more than change that's improved my life. But still, the negative changes have recently built up enough that I've got a litany to get off my chest.

Maybe I'll feel better for doing it. Maybe others will feel better … Read more

Want to use Google Voice on your mobile phone? Google has apps for Android, the iPhone, and BlackBerry.

But a year-and-a-half after Windows Phone launched, Google still has no plans to support Microsoft's mobile platform.

"We're focusing our Google Voice efforts on Android & iOS and don't have a plan to extend this to the Windows Phone," Google told me via e-mail, when I asked recently about the lack of support. "This may change if we start to see greater demand from Windows Phone users for Google Voice."

Why bother? Let me count … Read more

A few months ago, I dropped my phone in the back of a cab. It got turned in, and I recovered it the next day. Phew!

But it was a much needed wake-up call that I hadn't enabled any type of "find my phone" or "wipe my phone" services on it. Don't make this mistake! It's free and easy to do for the iPhone and Windows Phone; a little more work and maybe some slight expense for Android.

All the services I'll cover below allow you to do these things: