Web

You don't need expensive graphics software to edit photos like a pro. In fact, you don't need graphics software on your computer at all. All you need to edit photos like a pro is an Internet connection and a Flash-enabled Web browser.

Pixlr Editor is a free, Web-based photo-editing tool by Autodesk that looks and works a lot like Photoshop. It has many of the same tools as desktop photo-editing programs; tools like crop, smudge, red-eye correction, and spot-healing are all there. It even supports layers, history (for undos), and has a fair amount of filters to choose … Read more

The ability to create filters for spam messages in Gmail can sometimes lead to filtering e-mail from real friends.

Besides going "filter happy" on your spam messages, Gmail may accidentally mark a friend's e-mail as spam simply because it mentions certain phrases or products. For situations like these, you can add a whitelist to your Gmail. This will help messages from people you know land in the inbox, and not the trash can.

Step 1: Log in to your Gmail account.

Step 2: Click on the Settings cog in the top-right corner and go to Mail settings.… Read more

Tout is an awesome 15-second video service that allows you to share moments, not movies.

By getting to the important part of your message (the 15 seconds), the video file is small enough to upload quickly to Tout's servers for sharing. The wide range of ways you can access its service makes it fun and easy to use, especially if you want a break from "wall" posts and 140-character tweets.This service can be used with: Webcams, file uploads, Android, and iOS. This How To will mainly focus on the mobile version of Tout.

Step 1: Create … Read more

When Siri for the iPhone 4S was announced, downloads for Vlingo, a voice command app for Android, shot up 50%. Why? Because voice command, especially with artificial intelligence, can complete tasks more efficiently than our own fingers.

The act of talking to our gadgets is still in the awkward stage, but pretty soon we'll all be voice-commanding our phones, forgetting that we ever lived without artificial intelligence.

Voice command (and speech recognition) isn't just available for phones. Check out our guides on getting these services on any of your gadgets:

Android

QR codes are everywhere, and for good reason. They're easy to make, easier to scan, and are terrific for delivering info quickly and broadly (or narrowly, if you like). It seems likely that they're evolving, but they're still superuseful right now, and smart folks are uncovering all sorts of cool ways to make the most of them.

Before we get to the tricks, make sure you check out Nicole Cozma's great post for a smart overview and handy guide to creating your own QR codes.

For many of us, the Web is a great research and learning tool.

It can be hard to make the most of it, though, as when we encounter an unfamiliar term or a concept that we want to follow up on, it can be a pain to navigate away from our tab. QuickWiki is a great extension for Firefox that makes it easy to stay focused, letting you right-click any word or phrase to bring up a definition from Wiktionary or an entry from Wikipedia. Here's how to use it:

iCloud and iOS 5 brought with it a slew of new features with them when Apple launched the software duo earlier this month. One of the advertised features was the ability to sync iWork documents (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) using iCloud with the iWork apps on iOS. … Read more

Unless you just got your first Web-enabled device yesterday, the odds are good that you're signed up with multiple Web services that use contacts. Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn are just a few, and many of us also have contacts lists bound to our desktop e-mail clients.

Many services let you import contacts from one to another, but this doesn't keep you up to date with any given service. Neiio lets you import from a wide range of services, organize, and then export back to the same services, resulting in clean, up-to-date contacts lists for all of them Here's … Read more

Dropbox is incredibly handy, but the odds are that it's not your only cloud storage space. Maybe you've got a few MP3s sitting in Amazon's digital warehouse, or multiple holiday photo albums resting comfortably in Picasa. Wouldn't it be nice if you could merge these services, or at least have one portal that offered access to your various cloud services? Otixo aims to do just that, and it's free. Here's how to use it: