books

A Canadian comic book publisher is taking a biographical twist with its latest releases. Instead of caped crusaders and Web-slinging avengers, the focus is on tech pioneers like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Steve Jobs.

Bluewater Production comics has already seen success with comic books about pop culture icons like Lady Gaga and Betty White. Writers and illustrators say the stories of these technology mavericks play out in many ways like a typical comic story, the heroes are just real people overcoming the odds with super human qualities we all admire.

But there is a real difference between penciling a … Read more

Remember the PalmPilot? Remember how it synced all your contacts to either Palm Desktop or Outlook? That was pretty nice.

If you're a Windows user, there's no such desktop option for managing your iPhone address book. Sure, it gets backed up when you sync with iTunes, but there's no way to view or edit all those contacts. Your only real option is to switch to syncing with iCloud, which affords limited browser-based contact management.

Thankfully, there's another option: CopyTrans Contacts. This simple Windows utility lets you organize, edit, back up, and export your iPhone address book.… Read more

... it only comes on when it's plugged in. Hey, but I'm pretty sure it's just a battery issue, so I bet it's a pretty easy fix, and you'll have yourself a really tough-looking MacBook Air! Me, I'd enter to win it, for sure. And it's not like it's our Nexus 7 or anything. That's coming later.

So, if you'd like to be the proud owner of the Always On Collector's Edition MacBook Air, just enter to win in the comments below! In our last giveaway, we proffered the iPad … Read more

Update, 3:21 p.m. PT: Updated with comment from Amazon.

E-book readers who were excited about reading Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling's first adult book, "The Casual Vacancy," were met with an unpleasant surprise today -- the text delivered to their e-book readers was unreadable.

A glitch on the publishing end caused the book to be viewed into two formats: oversized letters that took up the screen or tiny, illegible font, paidContent reported, which first noticed the problem on Amazon's Kindle models.

It left the eager fans who shelled out $17.99 for the … Read more

A while back I told you about Keepsy, a Web site (at the time) that allowed you to use your Facebook and Instagram photos to create a personalized calendar. Fast-forward to today and Keepsy has released an iPhone app, allowing its users to create Sets of photos, which can then be turned into physical photo books.

To make a pocket book, as it's referred to by Keepsy, you'll need to download and install the free Keepsy app from the App Store. Create a Keepsy account or log in to your current account and then begin creating a Set … Read more

Users diving into Apple's new iOS 6 can get a helping hand from Apple's new guidebook, now available free via iBooks.

The iPhone User Guide For iOS 6 comes packaged as a 153-page e-book detailing all the ins and outs of the new OS. The book is geared for the iPhone, but iPad and iPod Touch owners running iOS 6 can also glean a fair amount of information.

The latest guidebook joins other e-book efforts from Apple, including iOS 5.1 user guides for the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPod Touch. The books are nicely designed, well … Read more

Apple is on the offensive again in the e-book pricing lawsuit. A subpoena issued by the tech giant in July has just surfaced and demands that the Department of Justice turn over interviews it conducted with Amazon employees for the suit, according to Paid Content.

The subpoena asks for "transcripts and exhibits" and a "list of individuals interviewed" by the DOJ in depositions.

To recap the case: in an antitrust lawsuit filed in April, federal prosecutors accused Apple and five book publishers of conspiring to artificially hike prices. At the time, Amazon was selling e-books much … Read more

Owners of ultrabooks face a variety of technical woes, from limited battery life to poor screen quality, according to a new study from FixYa.

Tracking questions and complaints from its site users, FixYa narrowed its scope to seven different ultrabooks, shining a light on the key problems found in each one.

Low memory was the top complaint among users of Apple's popular MacBook Air, followed by thermal shutdown, which automatically turns off the computer if it gets too hot. Some owners also said the Air was difficult to repair and that the speaker quality was poor.

To deal with … Read more

Along with Apple's OS X 10.8.2 update, the company has issued firmware updates for some of its latest MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models.

Apple's latest MacBook offerings are the 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display, and a 2012 revision of the older-generation MacBook Pro that does not have the Retina Display, along with the MacBook Air. Under some circumstances, these latest systems may experience hangs, or incompatibility with certain boot environments that prevent their hardware from running optimally, and these latest EFI firmware updates from Apple address these problems.

The updates should be available to … Read more