previews

Windows 8 activity among developers and other early adopters has fallen over the past three months, says a new study from ad network Chitika.

Looking at ad impressions for the Windows 8 Developer Preview on its own network earlier this month, Chitka found that they were measurably lower than ones seen in September.

Specifically, the new data compared impressions during the week of December 4 with those found toward the end of September, shortly after Microsoft launched the Developer Preview to the public. The stats released on September 26 showed a healthy jump in online activity in just a one-week … Read more

It wasn't an easy call for Mozilla to scrap the Android interface it had been using for its mobile version of Firefox, but today the company released the first images of what Firefox for Android could wind up looking like in the near future.

At first glance, it may appear that not much will be changed. In the standard browser window, tab management will be moved from the left side of the location bar to the right, and the location bar itself will get rounded corners. Many Firefox-specific pages, such as the add-on manager and the default Start page, … Read more

Will the average Windows PC user jump to Windows 8 next year or snub the new OS as a platform geared more for mobile devices?

Weighing in with a strong opinion on that question is research firm IDC, which recently unveiled a list of its top ten predictions for 2012. Key among them was one forecast eyeing doom and gloom for Windows 8, certainly in the desktop arena.

The next version of Windows will be Microsoft's first attempt to offer the same operating system for both PCs and mobile devices. IDC expects Windows 8 products to hit the market … Read more

A public beta of Windows 8 will launch in late February of next year, says tech news site The Next Web.

Citing "sources close to Microsoft," TNW pointed to February for the beta's debut but said the release date for the final version of Windows 8 remains a mystery, though it's expected to ship next year.

Mary Jo Foley of CNET sister site ZDNet said she's heard that the beta would appear after next month's Consumer Electronics Show, which runs from January 10 to 13, but Foley said she isn't aware of any … Read more

Apple's Preview application is the default PDF reader, and has a number of features that make it a convenient program to use. For example, you can quickly e-mail the PDF document you're reading by choosing the "Mail Selected PDF Document" option in the File menu.

This option should work for other document types as well, but some people have been finding this feature is not working at all. When the option to mail PDFs is selected, the system just sits there without opening Mail or generating any new messages containing the PDF document.

If this happens … Read more

Apple is once again expected to top Wall Street's estimates when it reports its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings tomorrow.

The maker of iPhones, iPads, and Macs is expected to post earnings of $7.27 per share on revenue of $29.3 billion, according to a Factset Research average posted by MarketWatch. That's up sharply from Apple's forecast of $5.50 per share on sales of $25 billion, which the company included in its third-quarter results, and even more so from the $4.64 per share on $20.3 billion of revenue the company actually posted during same quarter … Read more

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer really wants to sell you on Windows 8, touting features ranging from a new lock screen that still shares updates to the benefits of the controversial Metro user interface.

In a demo and discussion of the new OS at the Dell World conference on Friday, Ballmer focused on four key features, according to a report from Information Week, though some of it was ground that's already been covered.

A new lock screen that pops up when you're away from your PC displays a "peaceful mountain view." And though the OS is locked, … Read more

I'll be honest. I was a bit worried when the first images of what was being called Max Payne 3 started surfacing online. I thought, Who is that guy? Why is he in some tropical locale? Where's the snow? Where's the doom and gloom? And most importantly, where the hell is New York City?

Truth be told, the third installment of the franchise that is responsible for bringing the slow-motion bullet-time effect to mainstream games does feature an aesthetically different-looking Max Payne. But as we found out from a hands-off demo of the title at Rockstar Games' New York City offices, Max Payne 3 is looking like the true sequel loyal fans of the series will want to play and even embrace.

Even though Max Payne 3 isn't being developed by Remedy (the house behind the first two games), the Rockstar reps on hand informed me "they'd seen what we were doing with the game, gave some notes, and they're excited about its direction." When the first trailer for Max Payne 3 debuted on September 14, Remedy CEO Matias Myllyrinne tweeted, "A big thumbs-up and congrats to Rockstar on the Max Payne 3 trailer!"… Read more

The ability to quickly save the content of your screen is a useful feature to have, especially if you are troubleshooting aspects of your system. If an error window pops up on screen, instead of describing it to a technician, it helps to snap a screenshot and send that to better show exactly what is going on.

There are several options for creating screenshots in OS X, including Apple's "Grab" utility and the common keyboard shortcuts for doing so, but in addition to these, you can also use Preview. Generally this tool is used for viewing PDFs … Read more