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A while back Twitter announced that any URLs being shortened by its t.co service were going to cost users two extra characters. When you only have a 140 characters to begin with, the extra characters could be disastrous when trying to get your point across in a tweet.

It seems Apple didn't take the change into account with its integration of Twitter in OS X Mountain Lion. I discovered this when attempting to tweet a link from Safari. According to the tweet sheet, I had composed a perfect tweet, using up my entire 140-character allotment.

But every time … Read more

Computer hard drives have grown so big that neglecting to back up your stored information could lead to disaster. Applications like Time Machine can help enable users to easily protect their data, but sometimes they can generate errors that are difficult to decipher. Fortunately, TM Error Logger for Mac deciphers and tracks Time Machine error messages for you in understandable language.

TM Error Logger for Mac is a program that is capable of continually monitoring error messages generated by the Time Machine program. It is even capable of telling you which file the error code relates to so you can … Read more

If an unexpected $1,500 kept arriving in your bank account every month, would you tell anyone?

Or would you think of it as blissful found money and spend it on blissful things you found in online stores?

What if these mysterious payments kept arriving for two years? Would your guilt increase or decrease? Or would you think that Warren Buffett had suddenly taken kindly to your personality?

These might sound like hypothetical questions.

Yet they describe the moral dilemma that may (or may not) have crossed the mind of one very interesting person who kept receiving an online transfer … Read more

Dozens of lawsuits and investigations emerged after Facebook's initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Market last year. One investigation, initiated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, focused on technical errors in Nasdaq's system that inadvertently delayed trading that first day.

Now, word has it that Nasdaq may be able to settle the debacle with the federal regulators, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Sources familiar with the matter have told the Journal that Nasdaq has been in preliminary settlement talks with the SEC. If the two sides do make a deal, it will most likely … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Google turns 14: A look at the birthday-gift table.

- Pornoogle: Yes, a search engine just for porn.

- 404 error pages to feature missing children notices.

- Did blowing into Nintendo cartridges really help?

Check out Bridget Carey on the Web's best daily tech news show, CNET Update.

Video Voice mail: Dan from Golden Colorado ran the Denver Rock 'n Roll Marathon… Read more

ARO 2012 is the latest version of a longstanding Registry cleaner and optimizer. The look is familiar, but ARO 2012 offers several upgrades over previous versions, such as improved browser cleaning and user-friendlier settings as well as new tweaks that can yield better NTFS performance, faster startups, and improved CPU utilization. ARO 2012 also backs up and optimizes the Registry. You can schedule automatic cleanings, too.

ARO 2012's installer informed us that it would scan our PC as soon as it closed. The first scan is always important with software like ARO since it establishes a baseline, and ours … Read more

The Auslogic Registry Cleaner is an application for cleaning up problematic and error-filled files or folders on your computer, making it run more efficiently.

This is a good application to have, and it is pretty easy to use. You don't have to be a very advanced computer user to use it properly. There are a few scan options for more advanced users, but this Registry Cleaner already selects a default list of the drives and items it will search and repair. The Scan and Repair processes were very quick. It took half a minute to scan a little over … Read more

We've all been there: helping a relative with a computer problem they can't figure out, and suddenly they run into an error.

Now comes the fun part! You can attempt to have them explain the error box. Sometimes it feels as though you should type a random string of characters into Google and hope it's the right error code--the success rate will probably be similar.

Enter GetWindowText. This handy tool lets anyone select text from any Windows dialog prompt and place it into an area where it can then be copied to the clipboard for using elsewhere. … Read more

When managing your hard drive in OS X there are several potential problems that can crop up, including issues with the drive itself as well as those pertaining to the file setup on the drive. All of these can result in the inability to read or access files, and may, depending on the severity, result in anything from errors and brief pauses to system hangs or crashes. Apple lumps the management of some of these problems into its Disk Utility program, which is convenient but does have the effect of blending their meanings together, such as assuming a permissions fix … Read more