tools

The level of sophistication in both professional as well as in home kitchens keeps increasing at a seemingly exponential rate. Part of this acceleration is perhaps due to increased specialization and availability of kitchen gadgets and accessories. Certainly interest in new recipes and procedures seems to be at an all-time high. No matter what one can dream up, equipment as well as online instructions are never very far away. And of course, that goes for booze, too.

The craft cocktail movement of recent years has brought with it the need for specialized tools -- or at least constantly accessible familiar … Read more

An apparent security glitch in Google's software for webmasters has resulted in former contractors for big Web sites being granted access to those sites once again.

The glitch, as reported by The Next Web, has opened up sites like eBay to at least the potential for mischief. Once granted access to Webmaster Tools, an unscrupulous former employee could remove a site's home page from the search engine, eliminate sitemaps, and revoke other users' access to the tools.

So far, there haven't been any reports that former employees have made any mischief as a result of the glitch.… Read more

In Windows 7, power users could display administrative tools on the Start menu. Now that Windows 8 has done away with the Start menu, you might be wondering where they went. If you happen to know the name of the tool you want to use, you can just search for it from the Start screen. If, however, you prefer to see them as tiles, here's how to get them onto your Start screen:

1. Hit the Win+I shortcut to bring up the Settings charm, then select Tiles.

2. Move the slider under "Show administrative tools" to … Read more

Ah, the sweet smell of ingenuity. When Amsterdam designer Jody Kocken discovered she was allergic to wearing perfume, she didn't just resign herself to a world without White Diamonds and Someday by Justin Bieber. Kocken rolled up her sleeves and created Perfume Tools.

Perfume Tools are metal bracelets, earrings, and necklaces designed to sit over the opening of a perfume bottle. The jewelry soaks up the smell of the perfume, without ever requiring you to slather it behind your ears. Nestle a bracelet or necklace next to your skin and the heat of your body releases the aroma.… Read more

MorphVOX Junior is a free voice changer software app for Windows. Although it's designed for online games, you can use it for any purpose that requires voice changing and it works well with most VoIP and IM clients. MorphVOX Junior installs easily, and a relatively clean interface makes it easy to work with. There is a paid version of MorphVOX Junior that adds a lot more capability and better quality, but the free version will be fine for casual users.

Whether you want to change the timbre of your voice, make yourself sound like the opposite sex, or simply … Read more

Google launched a new tool today that allows Webmasters to eliminate links to their site that they believe might be hurting its search rankings.

Announced at the Pubcon conference in Las Vegas today, the "disavow links" tool is designed to help sites that have already been warned by Google of manual spam actions based on "unnatural links." The tool is recommended as a last-resort solution to link spam -- disreputable or irrelevant links that may hurt a site's search engine results ranking.

"By removing the bad links directly, you're helping to prevent Google (… Read more

Whether you're a small business or an individual who wants to create a pass for Passbook, unless you have a lot of technical knowledge, it's not going to be an easy journey. There are a lot of moving parts that come together to create a pass for Passbook. Certificates, the actual coding of the pass, signing it, distributing and tracking it are just a few of those parts.

Instead of investing countless hours and money into developing a pass, it may be easier to use a service to streamline the process and prevent any headaches you would likely … Read more

Daemon Tools Lite is a free tool that lets you create and burn simple disk images and add up to four virtual DVD drives to your system. These drives work just like a physical optical drive, only you don't have to keep shoving disks in and out of the tray. You can store your DVD and CD content on your hard disk and access the data quickly.

Daemon Tools Lite has significant advantages over many similar tools. For instance, it doesn't use a proprietary container format, which makes it widely compatible and gives you more options when burning … Read more

Twitter has made it easier to find its millions of users on search engines by launching a new "Profiles Directory" tool.

The directory lists all user accounts alphabetically and includes profiles with numbers and non-Latin character names.

Twitter did not formally announce its new directory but instead quietly debuted the feature on the bottom of its homepage. "We launched this a few weeks ago," a Twitter spokesperson told CNET, "to help people find the accounts they're looking for with various search engines."