Numbers

If you have experienced problems with your Mac and have had to take it in for servicing, be sure to check your system's serial number when you get it back, especially if the service required a logic board replacement.

While most of the time applications and services you use in your Mac will be relatively independent from the hardware setup, there are some instances where specific software may matter. Recently a hint was posted on MacWorld that discusses the reliance of Apple's FaceTime technology on the hardware of the system, where people who have had logic boards replaced … Read more

The concept behind iNumbers Count is simple enough. Match two or more adjacent numbers to total 10. But the execution of the game combined with the sublime interface makes this one of the more pleasantly surprising games we've had the opportunity to review in recent weeks. Not a big budget production, nor particularly unique in its core mechanic, it still manages to create an engaging, addictive experience that gamers will greatly enjoy.

The core mechanic is simple. The screen is filled with a series of numbers between zero and nine. Swipe your finger across two or more numbers to … Read more

After enjoying much success on iOS, Burner, the app that provides "disposable" phone numbers, has finally made its way to Android.

Have you ever wished you could have a temporary phone number for things like Craigslist purchases, job searches, or other short-term projects? Well, Burner provides just that. Think of it as an app that can disguise your phone. It gives you a temporary phone number from which you can place calls and send messages or receive calls and messages. Its phone numbers work exactly like the one provided by your carrier, but they stop working after a … Read more

While the need to locate a specific line in a text file may not be a very useful feature in regular prose text, for managing structured code such as scripts and XML files that are common in OS X, being able to identify a specific line or two may be quite useful.

If you have attempted shell scripting in OS X, you may find that when your scripts run into errors you will be given a brief description of the problem that includes the line where the problem occurred. While the use of BBEdit, TextWrangler, and other powerful text editors … Read more

Recently, the General Services Administration sent an e-mail alert to users of its System for Award Management (SAM), reporting that a security vulnerability exposed the users' names, taxpayer identification numbers (TINs), marketing partner information numbers, and bank account information to "[r]egistered SAM users with entity administrator rights and delegated entity registration rights."

The notice warned that "[r]egistrants using their Social Security Numbers instead of a TIN for purposes of doing business with the federal government may be at greater risk for potential identity theft." Also provided was a link to a page on the agency's site … Read more

If you use popular computational programs such as spreadsheet workhorses Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers, you might run into an issue in which, when using large number values, the system will appear to truncate the values of numbers entered.

For instance, if you open Excel and enter the value "12345678901234567890" into a cell, the program will change this to "12345678901234500000," where every value past the 15th character is set to zero. This happens in Apple's Numbers spreadsheet and other programs as well.

While the significance of the last numbers is perhaps questionable, it does limit … Read more

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) project has scored its 14th consecutive victory, discovering the largest prime number so far.

The number, 2 to the power of 57,885,161 minus 1, is a digit that's 17,425,170 digits long. That's big enough that if you want to see the full text, you'll have to brace yourself for a 22.5MB download.

GIMPS, a cooperative project splitting the search across thousands of independent computers, announced the find yesterday after it had been confirmed by other checks. At present, there are 98,980 people and 574 … Read more

Robocalling telemarketers ignored the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Call Registry in record numbers in fiscal year 2012. According to the FTC's National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for FY 2012 (PDF), the agency received 3,840,502 consumer complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls in the period, up substantially from the 2,273,516 complaints it fielded in fiscal year 2011.

Telemarketing robocalls are reaching epidemic proportions: complaints to the FTC about robocalls increased from just under 150,000 in October 2011 to 216,338 in March 2012 and remain near that level: 201,699 robocall complaints … Read more

MyScript Calculator (iOS|Android) is an app for both iOS and Android that lets you perform mathematical operations with freehand writing of expressions on your touch screen. This app won the Mobile App Showdown award at CES 2013 and after some time spent using it, it's easy to see why.

The simple-looking interface mimics the look of graph paper. In the top right of the screen you have buttons for undo and redo, and a trash can for when you want to clear the screen completely. In the upper left you can open a menu where you can access … Read more