Web

A favicon (short for "favorites icon") is the little graphic that Web browsers show next to the URL, bookmarks, and other places that help personalize and visually identify a Web site or blog. WordPress is a widely used blogging application that is available either as a service from WordPress.com or as an application you install and host, using your own hosting provider. I'll go over how to set a favicon for both types of WordPress blogs below.

WordPress.com users have the WordPress "W" logo as … Read more

Google has introduced a way that you can talk to your browser, as long as that browser is Chrome. It won't talk back, but it will do your bidding. These instructions cover the basics of the new speech-to-text feature, which is functional but has yet to be implemented widely.

First off, be sure that you're using Google Chrome 11 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux)or later, and that you've got a microphone. Next, you have to navigate to a site that supports the new speech API. Currently, that's limited to Google Translate, which itself is limited … Read more

Get in real time. At the top of your News Feed, click "Most Recent." Now you're viewing a real-time view of your friends' activities--however, Facebook is still only showing posts from people who it thinks you interact with most. To change that, click Most Recent > Edit Options > Show posts from all of your friends and pages.

Now you're viewing activities as they happen, which can get a little hectic. Here's how to refine this view:

Hide friends from the feed. Instead of unfriending someone because of his bothersome updates (like, "This chicken … Read more

Perhaps you, like me, enjoy a glass of wine. Especially if it's a larger glass, at least half full of good wine.

Perhaps you, riding on your usual wave of intelligence and sophistication, believe that you can always taste the difference between cheap wine that deserves a box or a hole in the ground, and expensive wine that deserves another year or two in a dimly lit cellar.

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in England, believes the mathematical likelihood is that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Wiseman, you see, decided that … Read more

One of Firefox's most popular features is its add-on support, with its accompanying deep add-on catalog. The new Firefox 4 Mobile for Android (download) and for Maemo devices (download) also support add-ons, so we've got a collection of Firefox mobile add-on essentials for you that covers the bases, from useful ad blocking to interesting, mobile-specific password helpers.

The best-known add-on that's a must-have is Adblock Plus (download), ported by the developer from Firefox desktop to mobile. If you're not familiar with it, it blocks ads by using blacklists to filter out the ads. Once installed, the … Read more

I'm a bit of a Craigslist junkie. I've used it to buy everything from a piano to a loft bed to a go-kart, and to sell or give away a host of unwanted items.

But despite its spartan interface--or perhaps because of it--the service isn't particularly user-friendly. For one thing, it doesn't let me save individual listings. And adding photos to my own listing means copying them over from my camera, resizing them, and on and on. Hassle city.

That's why I'm jazzed about apps like Lifelike Craig HD, which can turn an iPhone, … Read more

Hello, world! Today it's your Backup Day. World Backup Day is a new idea promoted by a small team of Redditors, and it's a good idea. You can never be too careful when it comes to backing up.

By the way, this is about your data, and not calling your buddies over for help in a hostile situation, which is not really my area of expertise. So let's talk backups!

Basically it means putting your data in multiple places so that if something happens to one place (let's say you forget your laptop on the top of your car and subsequently back over it), that important PowerPoint presentation you've been working on isn't lost.

Backing up is much easier than you might think. For example, if you've been working on an important essay, you can just e-mail it once in a while to your mom or to yourself. Just make sure you use an online free e-mail service, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or all of them. This goes for photos as well. If you remember to e-mail them to your mom when you have new ones (and she'll probably appreciate that very much), chances are she'll save them for you on her computer, and even if not, they are still in the Sent Items folder of your online e-mail account in case you have lost the originals.

Obviously, e-mailing can only handle a relatively small amount of data and you'll have to remember to do that manually. If you have many files that need backing up, you'll want something more robust. This is when a backup plan is necessary.

Online backup Similar to e-mailing, an online backup plan provides you with a certain amount of storage space that you can access over the Internet, aka "the cloud." And no, your data is not flying in the sky, it's stored and managed on one or multiple servers located in different parts of the world. There are many online backup services, such as Amazon S3, McAfee, Mozy, or even Comcast. … Read more

Before you purchase e-books from vendors like Amazon or from the iBookstore, see what your local library has to offer. With a library card and a free application, Overdrive Media Console, you can download free e-books and audiobooks to your iPhone (and any other iOS device), BlackBerry, Android device, or computer.

Remember, though, that most libraries might only carry a few copies of each title, so be ready to wait your turn. Additionally, most books have a loaning period of 7 to 14 days, so there's no room for procrastinating here.

Looking to cut the cord on cable TV? PlayOn is one of the services that can help ease the transition. It slings shows from your Windows PC to various devices, including game consoles, media center boxes, and an increasing number of handheld devices. It's kind of like Roku, with your PC filling the role of "the box."

In the past, PlayOn offered a free trial that expired after just 14 days, but now you can try PlayOn free of charge for one month. It's a great chance to see if it can really take some (or … Read more