manage

A previous post, Six tips for managing your iTunes library, described how to use iTunes' "Part of a gapless album" option to ensure related tracks that iTunes treats as separate files always play in their intended sequence.

As several commenters pointed out, the tip doesn't work as I described. The gapless option functions only when the two sequential album tracks are played in the order they were imported to iTunes.

The fact is, once album tracks are added to your iTunes library as separate files, it's easy for them to lose their association as contiguous album … Read more

When you add a new hard drive or SSD to your system, you must format and partition it before you can use it. The best tool for the job is a full-featured disk partition manager, which can not only format and partition drives but repartition them, too, or change the partition type when your needs change; for instance, if you should move your C drive to an SSD, you can repartition the old drive for media storage. EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition is just such a tool. Unlike some so-called free disk partition managers, EaseUS Partition Master is a full-featured … Read more

About the time my iTunes music library reached 5,000 tracks I knew it was time for a cleanup. While I was at it, I adjusted the volume on some tracks that I had converted from audio cassettes, made sure joined tracks play in sequence, set iTunes to fill my iPod automatically, and learned some handy playback-control keyboard shortcuts.

Now I'm spending more time listening to the tracks in my iTunes library and less time skipping, scrolling, and searching.

The semi-automatic way to remove duplicate media files iTunes provides two options for identifying duplicate files: one based on the … Read more

iPhone users now have yet another choice for a mobile browser.

Maxthon has finally made its debut for Apple's iPhone. As of today, the new version of the mobile browser is compatible with the iPhone 3GS, 4, and 4S, and with the iPod Touch 3G and 4G.

A dedicated iPad app has been around for a while. Maxthon also provides desktop clients for Windows and the Mac, as well as mobile versions for Android phones and tablets.

Like its big brother iPad edition, the iPhone flavor offers several features not found in Mobile Safari.

Maxthon starts off with a … Read more

Twice in the last month I had to become reacquainted with Microsoft Office because a company I was working with required a genuine Office file. Both experiences made me appreciate Google Drive's simple, straightforward apps all over again.

Yes, there are tasks Google Drive's word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program can't handle well or at all, but for 99.9 percent of the files I work on, Google Drive fits the bill nicely. Here are five ways to use Google Drive to shave minutes off your workday.

Keyboard shortcut opens a list of keyboard shortcuts After a … Read more

Facebook heavyweight Ben Blumenfeld is stepping down from the social network, according to a blog post he wrote today. Blumenfeld was the company's design manager and had been at Facebook since 2007. He is leaving to co-direct the Designer Fund.

This news comes as three high-level managers and directors left the company last week, including the director of platform partnerships Ethan Beard, platform marketing director Katie Mitic, and mobile platform marketing manager Jonathan Matus.

Blumenfeld was tasked with making Facebook's platform more accessible. "We were building great products, but not doing a great job of guiding people … Read more

Cash flow may be the single most important measure of your financial health, not only as it now stands but also going forward into the future. Wesley Steiner's My Cashflow is a free tool for visualizing and tracking your cash flow, both in the short term and in the days, weeks, and months ahead. It's not focused on what you've spent but what you spend going forward, so you don't need to enter stuff like receipts. By helping you visualize your paycheck and where it goes, My Cashflow can help you identify and reduce unnecessary expenses, … Read more

MyLife, a people-finding Web service, hopes to expand its presence in the social media world by offering a new dashboard to organize your feeds and e-mail accounts.

The dashboard, which went live today, takes a user's Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts and combines them with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and AOL accounts.

CEO Jeff Tinsley said people often start their days by accessing their social media, so MyLife wants to simplify the process by putting them all on one dashboard.

"Consumers are just overwhelmed," he said. "They're using many different services and they're jumping … Read more

You've likely been using Windows Task Manager to monitor your PC's performance or to kill errant processes since it was first introduced in Windows 95. Sadly, this drab, gray feature has seen no love from Microsoft in the ensuing decades. That's all changed with Windows 8.

The Task Manager has been given a refreshing visual update, the data is better organized, and lots of features have been added. This is a guide to making the most of the new Windows 8 Task Manager.

Finding the Task Manager There are various ways to launch the Task Manager. Windows … Read more