paste

Rich text formatting, be gone!

Two questions: Do you use a Mac? Do you find yourself copying and pasting text throughout the workday? If you answered "yes" to both questions, I would recommend spending $2.99 in the Mac App Store on Get Plain Text.

Once installed and running, Get Plain Text places an icon in your Mac's menu bar. Click on it and from the drop-down menu, choose "Automatically clear formatting." Now when you copy and paste text, you'll grab only the text and none of its formatting. You can easily turn this … Read more

The Nintendo 3DS has already been through a lot. The first-ever glasses-less 3D portable console didn't have the most glamorous of launches when it hit the market more than two years ago. Tainted by an underwhelming batch of debut software, controversial 3D effect, and a disappointing battery life, the 3DS didn't have a whole lot going for it out of the gate.

If that wasn't enough of a burden, the 3DS was also forced to follow up the original DS, a predecessor that is approaching worldwide sales of 154 million units combined. It's the best-selling portable console of all time.

But in the 25 months since its release, the 3DS has made significant strides. A focus on the platform's online store and a hardware refresh with a much bigger screen and better battery have begun to right the ship. Most importantly, a bevy of compelling software has been made available -- though some have criticized the company's continual recycling of classic games. … Read more

Repeat cutting and pasting can be a tedious and frustrating task. Paste Master for Mac allows for the creation of multiple clipboards to be created and used in different manners. Unfortunately, design issues overshadow how good this program could be.

Paste Master for Mac is able to generate an unlimited number of clipboards to allow for repetitive pasting. The clipboards can accommodate text, image, and HTML formats. Clipboards can be linked together to allow for pasting into multiple fields at the same time. The program is located in the System Preferences panel, making it somewhat unintuitive to access. You can … Read more

Ah, the old copy/paste. Such a handy keyboard shortcut for such a wide range of applications. But would you want your doctor using it while maintaining your oh-so-personal and unique-to-you medical records?

Because chances are good that your doc does, according to new research out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Excuse me while I take a moment to summarize, rather than copy and paste, some key findings from the research.

Assistant professor of medicine and lead author Daryl Thornton and his team scrutinized 2,068 electronic patient progress reports at an ICU in Cleveland. Some 62 … Read more

In the annals of computer history, no two keystroke combinations have done more to boost worker productivity than Ctrl-C to copy to the clipboard whatever you've selected on the screen, and Ctrl-V to paste the contents of the clipboard to wherever you've placed the cursor.

What often follows the paste is the laborious process of reformatting the pasted material to match the look of the destination document. Microsoft Word lets you apply the formatting of the destination document when you paste, but by default Ctrl-V retains the original formatting of the pasted text.

Back in 2007 I described … Read more

If the word "robot" conjures up for you machines with two eyes and four limbs, it's time to think again.

The robots having a commercial impact today have little to do with C-3PO, Terminator, Rosie the Maid, or other humanoid robots from popular culture. Instead, working robots are surprisingly diverse and, rather than mimic humans' every move, focus on a few very specific tasks.

For a sign of how robotics is shaping up, consider Amazon's $775 million purchase of Kiva Systems last month. Kiva's machines are designed to navigate warehouses to collect products and automate … Read more

What would you do if you could travel back in time with a laptop in tow?

An amusing infographic by Dell reminds us of the (relative) hardships previous generations faced while performing tasks that a laptop can tackle in mere moments.

One wonders--after choosing a destination and time frame--which laptop you'd bring to the past. What would you do with said laptop, aside from having people worship you? Heads up: battery life might be a concern out there in the pre-electricity days. … Read more

In the old days, renewable energy was the best option available. Then it became a social statement. Now with fits and starts, it's creeping toward the mainstream.

To give CNET readers some perspective on renewable energy, we've assembled a slideshow on renewable energy through the ages, its present form, and some ideas as to where it's going.

The history of using the wind, sun, and water reaches back to antiquity. But what's remarkable about many renewable-energy technologies being pursued today--solar, wind, geothermal, and bioenergy--is that today's product ideas often have roots in research begun after … Read more

How do you improve a staple function like copy and paste? Simple. Make it smarter.

Clipboard is a content-centric utility designed for copying and saving content on the Web. With Clipboard, you can copy and paste custom elements from any Web page, whether it's images, articles, videos, or a combination of all three. No more worrying about precise highlights and tedious Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, etc. Simply register and log in to the Clipboard site. Clipboard will show you a quick tutorial video on how to add Clipboard to your bookmark bar.

After finding an … Read more