Danny Puff

By Dan Tynan, Tech Columnist

One day about four years ago, I came home from work and heard utter mayhem coming from my son's room: Russian voices, screeching tires, gunshots. I bolted up the stairs and threw open his door.

I found him parked in front of his Xbox, playing Grand Theft Auto IV. I watched his avatar lead police on a high-speed chase through the absurdly empty streets of Liberty City. He crashed a car into a light pole, hopped out of his car, and began emptying a .45 Magnum at the cops.


This game was most definitely not on the family approved-to-play list. My first instinct was to grab the Xbox and throw it out the window. My wife persuaded me to conserve my moral outrage for those moments when he did something dangerous or stupid in the real world, not in a virtual one.

Still, for a little while I felt like the world's worst parent. Then I sat down and watched him play, and I also watched the story on the Xbox unfold before him. I realized that GTA is a dystopian satire not all that different from movies like A Clockwork Orange, which thoroughly outraged parents when I was his age.

The idea that playing video games makes kids violent and antisocial is often accepted as a sobering fact of modern life. Whether it's true is less clear — some studies say yes, others say nyet. In the real world, watching Clockwork did not make me into a droogie. And playing GTA did not turn my son into a murderous thug. He's a great kid.

But let's assume the fear has some truth, that violent media contributes to violent behavior. If so — if games teach kids to shoot first and to drive as if cars are weapons — can't games also be used to impart positive life skills like empathy or compassion? Can video games boost a child's emotional quotient (EQ)?

Some people think they can. One of them is Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, most famous for creating the most popular sports simulation game of all time, John Madden Football. Now he's trying to prove it via a fantasy adventure game called IF… aimed at tweens.

You the dog, man
Just as Madden Football is based on actual NFL playbooks, IF… is based on decades of research in social emotional learning (SEL). The game takes place in a land called Greenberry populated by dogs, cats, and magical Pokemon-like characters known as Vim. Long ago, the dogs and cats were driven apart by conflict, and Greenberry fell into ruin.

Guided by the Yoda-like YouDog, players must learn how to tame the Vim, resolve the conflicts, and bring Greenberry back to harmony. Along the way they're presented with questions and a choice of answers measuring their degree of empathy and other SEL attributes.

You’ve got three choices. Pick the wrong answer, and you’ll get a lesson in sensitivity from YouDog.

Each chapter teaches 20 distinct SEL skills, such as listening, managing emotions, or expressing gratitude. As each chapter is completed, parents get a report detailing how well their child did. The first chapter of the book-like adventure is available for free in the iTunes Store. New chapters will start to become available in June for around $5 apiece.

To be frank, this is not the most exciting game your child will ever play. The first chapter is didactic, slow, and unlikely to lure anyone away from Minecraft, Runescape, or Club Penguin. (I'm told things get livelier in Chapter 2.) But Hawkins says the rewards are more subtle and long lasting.

"This game is not about advancing in levels; it's about teaching compassion," he said. "You're like the Jimmy Stewart character in It's a Wonderful Life. You see how the town ends up in tatters without you, and it's up to you to make it right."

Learning to cope
Though IF… is probably the most ambitious and well-funded attempt to employ gaming techniques to teach kids emotional skills, it's not the only one. The Social Express uses Pixar-like animation to teach kids age 5 and up how to read emotional clues and react to them appropriately.

The Social Express starts by teaching kids how to recognize their own emotions, and then how to apply coping skills.

Rather than embed lessons inside the plot of a role-playing game, The Social Express uses brief webisodes that target specific situations and model appropriate behavior, CEO Marc Zimmerman says.

Kids can apply those lessons to their own lives via a 99 cent Android or iOS app called My Digital Problem Solver. My DPS lets kids choose an image that shows how they feel at the moment (frustrated, scared, mad, or whatever) and then select a coping strategy like taking deep breaths or "positive self talk" to calm down.

In use by more than 100 school districts across the country, The Social Express is also available to families for $5 a month per child. Parents can track their child's progress through the lessons via a free mobile app.

IF….. and The Social Express are two examples of a small but growing genre of digital works that explore emotions besides fear and anger, which tend to dominate most video games, said Tanner Higgin, senior manager for education content at Common Sense Media.

"There's a wide range of feelings like loneliness, trepidation, and guilt that have remained largely untapped," he said. "Over the last few years we've started to see a lot more games that implicitly or explicitly build social skills and expand the emotional spectrum."

The play's the thing
Respecting other people's feelings, sharing, being empathetic — aren't these things kids should be learning from their parents, not from a screen? I asked Janice Toben, founder of the Institute for Social and Emotional Learning, who consulted on the curriculum baked into IF… .

Yes, she replied. But she added that many parents lack the ability to model those traits themselves, especially during emotionally charged encounters with their children. So, for example, instead of calmly explaining that a violent video game is detrimental to a child's emotional development, they are instead tempted to rip the cables from the Xbox and hurl it into the street.

"Parents want to be able to create a common vocabulary around things like calming down, listening to each other, and getting along, but not everyone knows how to do it," she said. "I think a game like IF… can help, if the parents are interested and involved."

Research has shown that playing games can sharpen a child's problem-solving skills (not to mention his aim and his reflexes). If games can boost his IQ, why not his EQ? At the very least it's worth a shot — metaphorically speaking, of course.

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By Dan Tynan, Tech Columnist

We'd just crested the ridge at 6,000 feet when I decided to find a nice soft spot to lie down and die. I thought I might just sleep until the snow arrived and turned me into a Popsicle. But I had my 15-year-old daughter with me, and one of us had to act like the adult.


This was our annual "unplugging" trip to the Great Smoky Mountains, and it wasn't going so well. As usual, my 17-year-old son had charged up the trail and was already at the lodge sipping hot cocoa. We hadn't seen my wife for over an hour; she was hiking to the beat of a different drummer. But dad and daughter were feeling the full weight of the seven-mile, 4,000-foot ascent.

Then the phone inside my backpack bleeped. A text message had managed to find me in the middle of nowhere. It was from my wife: "Where r u guys?"

Every year we make a pilgrimage to LeConte Lodge, a dozen cabins at the top of the Smokies accessible only by foot, with no electricity, no Internet, and — theoretically, at least — no cell coverage. (Technically, if you stand in precisely the right spot near the bathrooms you can send and receive texts. That's where she was when she sent her message.)

The idea was to separate ourselves from technology for at least 24 hours. When we first did this four or five years ago it was relatively easy. Now, not so much. Wireless networks have gotten so powerful that we got 4G coverage more than halfway up the mountain. And we've become so dependent on our phones for music, entertainment, maps, and more that none of us could bear to leave our handsets behind.

We did finally manage to unplug, however … when our batteries ran out.

Plug ugly
We're not the only parents concerned about our collective obsession with technology. You were probably too busy looking at your phone to notice, but last week was "Screen-Free Week." The campaign, which has been running in one form or another since the early 1990s, encourages kids to rediscover fun things to do that don't involve electronics, says Josh Golin, director of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood that oversees it.

Last month, spoken word artist Gary Turk posted a five-minute video to YouTube titled "Look Up" that urged us to stop tapping on our devices and start talking to one another.


That video is a bit preachy for my tastes, but it has struck a chord: It has been watched more than 32 million times.

An excess of screen time has been blamed for a rogue's gallery of childhood ills, including insomnia, attention disorders, a failure to make real-world social connections, and a childhood obesity epidemic. More than a third of Americans under the age of 19 are seriously overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least part of that may be caused by too many pixels and not enough physical activity.

Tune out, turn off
What can you do about it? I've talked with dozens of parents about this, and while there's no magic formula, it really boils down to a few simple rules:

1. Create a contract. As I've written elsewhere, it's a good idea to sit down with your kids and collaborate on guidelines for when and how they're allowed to use their devices. Write them down so there's no dispute later over what they agreed to.

(Many parents bristle at the notion of negotiating anything with their children. If the "my way or the highway" approach works for you, fantastic. I think kids are more likely to follow the rules if they have a say in creating them, and are also more likely to become responsible adults. But ask me in 10 years and I'll let you know how this has worked out.)

2. Establish tech-free zones. A popular tactic is to set times or spaces where technology is verboten (that also includes you, by the way). Meals are a typical time to ask everyone to check their phones at the door; many parents forbid technology after a certain hour or in kids' bedrooms; and some plan gadget-free trips and other activities.

You will probably need some kind of monitoring system on your home network to help enforce these rules. You'll also want to get familiar with the devices your kids use most. The iPad, Kindle, and Xbox all have rudimentary parental controls built in, while AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon let you set time restrictions and put other limits on their phones for a small monthly fee.

3. Choose your screens carefully. Measuring screen time alone is missing the point. There's a big difference between spending two hours building cool stuff in Minecraft and spending two hours decimating zombies in Dead Rising. I think my son spends too much time watching YouTube videos, but actually many of them are about science or history. It's not a substitute for playing football, but it's not a total brain-melting waste either.
The biggest offender, by the way, is not the computer, console, or phone. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital concluded that the worst contributor to childhood obesity is the TV. Why? Kids are bombarded with ads for fast food and sugar-saturated drinks. And, worse, their hands are free to stuff this junk down their gullets.

4. Get active. What does a kid do when there's no screen to turn to? What you used to do when you were a kid: Break out the board games, ride bikes, play hopscotch. There was a period in third grade when my daughter was obsessed with knitting and got all of her friends obsessed, too. That worked fine.

There are also dozens of Xbox, PlayStation, and Wii games that allow kids to exercise more than just their thumbs, using the consoles' cameras and motion detectors. These games are also easier for most adults to play along with. It's still technically screen time, but it's social and physically active screen time.

5. Heal thyself. Want to see someone who probably spends too much time staring into the electronic void? Look at the reflection in your monitor. Or smartphone. Or tablet. If you're not dealing with your addiction to pixels, how can you ask your kids to deal with theirs?

Awareness of this problem has given rise to a new phenomenon: unplugging camps for adults, where overly wired professionals free themselves from the shackles of technology. There are dozens of these; one of the better known is Digital Detox's Camp Grounded in Anderson Valley, California. This June, for a little more than $500, you can spend four days taking workshops in archery, dance, tai chi, and fire making, among other things. You're not allowed to tweet about any of it.

"The rules at camp are taken seriously," says founder and camp director Levi Felix. "No digital technology, no work talk, and no networking. The focus isn't on disconnecting from devices as much as it is about reconnecting to the things that really matter in life."


Modern phone age families
If you are feeling the urge to toss your kids' smartphones into the trash, there are two more things to keep in mind. First, this is not a new problem. My parents' biggest complaint was that TV rotted kids' brains. Their parents probably worried about an excess of talking pictures. Go far back enough; I bet we'd discover Fred and Wilma were concerned that Pebbles was spending too much time in front of cave paintings. Most of us survived just fine.

The second thing to remember is that we have to prepare our kids for the world they will inherit, not the one we grew up in. Barring some kind of technology apocalypse, nearly everything they read, do, or say as adults is going to be delivered digitally.

In other words, they will be spending even more time in front of screens. One of our jobs as parents is to make sure they don't spend all their time in front of them. Another is to make sure that the unavoidable time they do spend with technology is spent well and wisely.

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By Arden Moore | vetstreet.com

It's often easy to spot when cats are being finicky or feisty. But what about when they are showing pure feline affection? What does that look like?

We spoke with Dr. Allen Schoen, a veterinarian, behaviorist and author of the best-selling book Kindred Spirits and Vetstreet's own Dr. Marty Becker, author of Your Cat: The Owner's Manual, to share 10 ways cats deliver love and affection to the people who matter most to them.

"I've been studying animal behavior since 1974 and can say without a doubt that cats can and do bond with their favorite people," declares Dr. Allen Schoen, a veterinarian, behaviorist and author of the best-selling book Kindred Spirits. "I've been fortunate to share my life with some of the sweetest, most loving cats. When they come in contact with us, they are consciously making an inter-species connection."

But the trick is to recognize - and appreciate - what they are trying to tell you. Here are nine ways cats show their affection.

1. Lightly touching her forehead against you

Called head bunting, this feline act of affection is delivered only to the A-listers in a cat's life. Your cat will face you, lower her head and lean forward so that the top of her head touches your forehead, face or other body part. This loving touch can often release feel-good hormones called endorphins in your cat and you.

2. Cheek rubbing you

Think of your cat as a feline graffiti artist. To make her turf really feel like home, she will rub her cheeks against the corners of furniture and, possibly, your legs or hands when you pet her. This act secretes oils from her facial glands. It's her way of claiming you as her own. Just be grateful that she does so by cheek rubbing, not spraying.

3. Twitching the tip of her tail

The feline tail acts like a mood barometer. The tail puffs out when your cat is frightened or agitated. Conversely, your cat expresses love to you when she approaches you with her tail hoisted lazily up in the air and the very tip twitches. In cat speak, she is saying, "You rock my world!"

4. Holding eye contact and sharing a soft blink

Don't expect a cat to maintain a steady eye-to-eye stare with a new houseguest. Cats save eye contact for people they know and trust, like you. The bond is accented when she blinks softly at you. This is the equivalent of a kitty kiss. Respond by softly blinking back.

5. Turning on the purr power

This steady, rhythmic sound emitted when your cat inhales and exhales is often associated with contentment. But cats also purr when they need to self-calm or while nursing a litter; however, your cat saves the special full-bodied rumble as a smile directed to you. It is her way of saying, "I love you."

6. Sitting on you or beside you

Cats crave warm places to nap and sleep, but when they bypass a comfy cat bed or your bedroom pillow to perch on your lap, you should feel honored. Your cat has sized up her options and is conveying that she prefers being with you rather than being by herself in her cat bed.

7. Kneading his paws on your lap

If you need a sign it is time to trim your cat's nails, nothing is clearer than when he perches on your lap, purrs and starts kneading your thighs with her front paws. But this is also a sign of affection. Experts say that this action beckons your adult cat back to a safe, welcoming memory when she was nuzzling his mother for milk as a newborn kitten. He is being affectionate and a bit nostalgic.

8. Licking your hair and earlobes

OK, neither of these actions may rate on your top 10 list of affection preferences, but your cat is regarding you as another cat - albeit a big one - in her inner circle. Only special "cats" are deemed worthy of these special grooming sessions. In a multicat household, mutual grooming is a sign of trust and friendship. Pay attention to which cats, if any, in your home team up for mutual grooming. You may be the only one meriting such a gift!

9. Bringing you dead mice, birds and other so-called gifts

Evolution and domestication have not stripped your cat of her inner hunter. After a successful hunt, she may deposit a mouse head or lizard tail in a place she knows you will visit - like your pillow. Yuck? Yes, but your cat is sharing her prey prize with you, a true sign of trusted friendship.

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By Brandon Bailey covers Google, Facebook and Yahoo for the San Jose Mercury News, reporting on the business and culture of the Internet.


Okay, all you Windows XP users – and, by now, you know who you are. The security threat to your computer could get uncomfortably real next week.

Microsoft is set to release its next series of routine security patches on Tuesday, and for the first time, it won't be releasing any patches for the 13-year-old operating system known as Windows XP, according to veteran security blogger Graham Cluley.

"In all probability," Cluley warned on his blog today, "there will be Windows vulnerabilities fixed on that day which will remain unpatched on the unloved Windows XP platform."

"And it would be no surprise at all if malicious hackers reverse-engineered Microsoft's fixes and explored how to exploit on Windows XP security flaws that are fixed on the likes of Windows 7."

It's not that XP users haven't been warned. As we've reported before, Microsoft has been telling everyone for months that, as of this spring, it would no longer issue security updates for the aging, but still widely used XP version of its flagship Windows operating system – even though XP is still running on tens of millions of personal computers around the world.

But Microsoft backtracked from its self-imposed April 8 deadline, when it responded last week to a new and dangerous vulnerability involving its Internet Explorer web browser. Microsoft distributed a set of software patches to fix that problem on May 1, and it deemed the threat so severe that it decided to include a patch for computers running Explorer on XP.

As a Microsoft security official noted, the company is still encouraging users to upgrade to a newer, more secure operating system. And now Cluley is arguing that it's time for Microsoft to show some tough love. Providing further patches for XP is only encouraging people to put off a needed upgrade, he writes.

"I'm not saying it's going to be pretty," Cluley added, but: "It's time for the world to get rid of Windows XP. And it's time for Microsoft to make an honest clean break and not release any more fixes for XP."

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By Alyssa Bereznak, Tech Columnist

Getting lost just got a little bit harder.

Google Maps is rolling out new features to its mobile Android and iOS apps that are meant to improve commuting by automobile, train, and even the Uber car service. The company announced the slew of updates meant to prevent "life's everyday hiccups" Tuesday morning in a blog post.

Here are five of its most notable features and how to use them:

1. When receiving driving instructions, the app will now tell you which lane to stay in or switch to.


One of the worst parts about early-day GPS was how little warning you got that it was time to exit. I can't count how many times I've been instructed by Maps to take a last-minute exit and missed it because it was too dangerous to swerve across three lanes in 45 seconds.

This new feature eliminates those frustrations and will make it both safer and easier to receive on-the-road instructions. There's no need to enable it. Simply search for directions from one location to the next, tap on the car icon, and the guiding slides will pop up.

On each leg of the trip, there will be a small white box in the upper-left corner of the screen, as you can see below.


It shows how many lanes are on the road, whether they're turn only, and — most importantly — which one you need to be in.

This may save all of us a little road rage.

2. You can save and search for certain areas of maps to access offline.


Technically you were able to do this prior to the update, but now the feature has been more prominently integrated into the design and made easier to use. You can also now label and store your maps in a designated location, so you can search for them while you're on the move.

To use this feature, search for a general location you plan to visit. It could be a entire city like "San Francisco," but it's probably better to choose a specific neighborhood of an area you're visiting.

Once the search loads, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to show the area's "location card."


From there, you'll see some basic info about the area, including the option to go straight into Street View. Beneath that you'll see a white box that says Save map to use offline. Tap it.


You'll be shown the map again. This time you can choose to pan around the area by dragging your finger on the screen, or zoom in and out by pinching. When you're all done, tap the Save button at the bottom.


From there, you can name the map or just go with Google's helpful automated suggestion. Then tap Save.


You may have to wait a few seconds for it to store the image, depending on how large the area is that you want saved.

If you want to access the map again, go to your main home screen, make sure your search bar is clear, and tap the person icon in the top right.


You'll see your Maps profile page, which includes your Home and Work locations, including locations you've saved, and recent searches. Scroll all the way down. At the very bottom you'll find your offline maps.


3. You can specify your departure and arrival times for public transit.


Anyone who regularly relies on a train or bus for transportation knows that service varies according to the time of day. Now you can search for specific arrival and departure times that fit your schedule. The app will take into account any timing factors and even let you know when the very last train or bus on a line is for that night.

To use it, search for public transportation directions as you usually would. When the routes come up, tap the small gray box at the top of the screen that says Depart at….


A box will pop up at the bottom of the page. From there you can choose the date and time. You can also specify if you want to depart or arrive at a certain time. Or simply pick Last to find out when the very final train on that route will come. Then press Done.


Notice that it'll specify the wait time between trains for the time of day you're searching.


Pretty helpful for any sort of late-night public transportation!

4. You can order an Uber ride from the app if that's your fastest option.


Sometimes the chance of catching a train is hopeless, there's not a cab to be seen, and you just need to get a car to pick you up. This is when the black-car service Uber can come in handy. In addition to being able to compare travel times among walking, transit, and cabbing, you can now see how long it'll take for an Uber to drive to the destination of your choice.

To use it, search for directions as usual. At the bottom of all your options, there'll be an one to Get an Uber. On the right of the box, you'll see the time it'll take for the Uber to get you to where you're going (no sign if this also incorporates the amount of time it takes for an Uber to reach you). The time will appear in green if it's faster that the route you searched for. It'll appear in orange if it's not as fast.


With a tap on the box, you'll be brought to your Uber app. Your current location will also be transferred.


5. You can search for businesses by filter.


Looking for a place to eat or drink on the go can be frustrating, because you're never sure about its pricing, whether it's disgusting, and if it's even open. Now you can search for locations around you with filters that include hours, rating, and price.

Just search for a "restaurant," "cafe," or whatever other thing you need to find near you. When the results populate the map, tap the three-lined symbol on the right of your search bar.


You'll be brought to a page of your search results. Tap Filter in the upper-right corner of the screen.


A page of controls will pop up, which allow you to look for businesses according to their rating and price. You can also choose options like Open now or From your circles, which mines suggestions from your Google+ friends' recommendations. When you're done adjusting the settings, tap Apply.


It's a cool feature, but it doesn't always have results to return.


This is particularly helpful if you just so happen to be out late and need to find the least-sketchy place nearby that serves tacos. Just sayin'.

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By Daniel Bean, Editorial Assistant


In this new society that we've all agreed to be a part of, your Facebook page is an extension of yourself. For this reason, it's not a good idea to post anything there that you wouldn't normally say, for example, to your boss.

The unfortunate folks below didn't get that memo. Here are 11 examples of Facebookers who weren't so careful with what they shared and, as a result, put their employment statuses in jeopardy because of it.

1. Broadcasting to your online friends how much you hate your boss is probably not going to help you stay employed, especially if your boss is one of those online friends. This embarrassing post (below) probably did a number on our poster's relationship with said boss.

Anonymous employee in hot water. (lamebook.com)

2. A Swiss woman in 2009 was playing what would normally have been a simple case of hooky, claiming that she had a migraine and could not work in front of a computer screen. Unfortunately, her employer noticed that she had signed in to Facebook that same day. Saying that this had "destroyed its trust in her," company management decided to let her go. In defense, the woman did claim to have been accessing Facebook from her iPhone, but she was fired (or sacked, as they say abroad), regardless.

We’re betting this old story still gives her a headache. (guardianlv.com)

3. A Georgia teacher was called into the principal's office in 2009 after a student's parent complained of finding pictures of her drinking beer and wine on her Facebook page. School administration said the images "promoted alcohol use", and the teacher was ultimately asked to choose between resignation or accepting a suspension. She chose to resign.

A picture from Georgia teacher Ashley Payne’s Facebook. (dailymail.co.uk)

4. Anyone who once thought that Facebook was a safe place to taunt or insult your comany's customers has probably found out the hard way by now that it is not. Take this Detroit power company employee, for instance. This impressive rant posted to her wall in 2013 (which you can read most of below) got her canned pretty quickly.

Rachel Burnett’s Facebook post. (The Blaze)

5. We can all agree that publicly posting something like this (below) will vastly limit your employability, right? How do you think his Monday morning meeting went?

Dope doing dope on Facebook. (lamebook.com)

6. A county school bus driver in Georgia was fired in 2013 for posting about a hungry student passenger who claimed he didn't have enough money to get lunch at school. "As a tax payer … I would rather feed a child than to give food stamps to a crack head", the driver wrote. School board officials didn't take the critique well, and in fact found no proof that the boy went without lunch. County school board policy stipulated that "disciplinary procedures" apply to employees who post on social networking sites and cause disruption to the instructional environment. The bus driver refused to recant and apologize, so he was fired.

Johnny Cook’s Facebook post. (inquisitr.com)

7. An intern in 2007, still learning the ropes, no doubt, was fired after his boss learned that the "family emergency" he had to miss work for was a fib. How was his lie sniffed out? The intern's co-workers found this Facebook picture of him attending a Halloween party the same day he blew off work. What's worse? The made-up story, or the fairy wand?

Our dear intern has much to learn. (mymodernmet.com)

8. When you've added those who employ you as Facebook friends, it's probably best to keep most thoughts regarding your terrible work habits to yourself, unlike what has seemingly transpired in this post (below).

Slacker employee exposed. (lamebook.com)

9. When a U.S. Marine posted a rant on his Facebook page in 2012 that included "screw Obama", he quickly found out that insulting your boss on social media, whether you're friends with him or not, won't end well when your boss is the POTUS. Needless to say, he was discharged from service.

Gary Stein’s apology. (The Sexy Politico)

10. This Tennessee KFC employee seems to have licked his last pile of mashed potatoes. A Facebook picture showing him doing just that (below) not only got him fired; the company also announced that it had retrained the entire staff of that KFC location. The restaurant said in a statement that the potatoes pictured weren’t served to any customers, but we'll go ahead and pass on eating at any of the Colonel's Tennessee locations anyhow.

Ewww. (NY Daily News)

11. And lastly, of course, don't forget that, yes, despite your better judgment, you did friend your boss on Facebook. Whoops.

Slipped my mind. (lamebook.com)

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Modern PCs don't require as much maintenance as they once did. But showing your hard drive some love now and then can make a difference in its speed and efficiency, especially if it's fairly full. Here it is: the non-techie's guide to optimizing your system using Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter.

Disk Cleanup

As you use your computer, Windows litters your hard drive with temporary files. Programs, utilities, and websites scatter disposable files everywhere. If you could see your hard drive's surface, it would eventually look like the floor of a minivan whose owners eat a lot of fast food.

To run Windows' built-in housekeeper program, the quickest route is this: Open the Start screen. Type "disk cleanup" and select Settings under the search box. In the search results, click Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files. (Disk Cleanup is also available in the Control Panel.)

The Disk Cleanup program dives right in. If you have more than one drive, it lets you choose the one you want to work on; then it goes to work, inspecting your drive and reporting on files you can safely remove.

Left to its own devices, it will clean up only your files. But if you'd like to clean up all the files on the computer, including Microsoft's own detritus, click Clean up system files. Authenticate if necessary.


The Disk Cleanup dialog box shown above appears when the inspection is over. Turn on the checkboxes of the file categories you'd like to have cleaned out, and then click OK to send them to the digital landfill. It's like getting a bigger hard drive for free.

Disk Defragmenter

When you save a new file, Windows records its information onto the hard drive in small pieces called blocks. On a new PC, Windows lays the blocks end to end on the hard drive's surface. Later, when you type more data into a document (thus enlarging it), the file no longer fits in the same space. Windows puts as much of the file in the original location as can fit, but it may have to store a few of its blocks in the next empty spot on the hard drive.

Ordinarily, you'll never even notice that your files are getting chopped up in this way, since they open promptly and seamlessly. Windows keeps track of where it has stored the various pieces and reconstitutes them when necessary.

As your drive fills up, though, the free space that's left is made up of smaller and smaller groups of blocks. Eventually, a new file may not fit in a single "parking place" on the hard drive's surface, since there are no free spaces left large enough to hold it. Windows may have to store a file in several different areas of the disk, or even hundreds.

When you try to open such a fragmented file, the drive heads (which read the disk) must scamper all over the disk surface, rounding up each block in turn, which is slower than reading contiguous blocks one after the other. Over time, this file fragmentation gets worse and worse. Eventually, you wind up griping to your buddies or spouse that you need a new computer, because this one seems to have gotten so slow.

The solution: Disk Defragmenter, a program that puts together pieces of files that have become fragmented on your drive. The "defragger" also rearranges the files on your drives to make the operating system and programs load more quickly. A freshly defragged PC feels faster and more responsive than a heavily fragmented one.

(UPDATE: This advice, and this program, applies to traditional spinning hard drives—not the solid-state drives [SSDs] on some high-end laptops. For much more on the "defragging SSDs" issue, here's a good primer.)

Windows' disk-defragging software runs automatically at regular intervals, in the tiny moments when you're not actually typing or clicking. It's like having someone take out your garbage for you whenever the can is full. Slow-PC syndrome should, therefore, be a much less frequent occurrence.

Even though Windows defrags your hard drive automatically in the background, though, you can still exert some control. For example, you can change the schedule, and you can trigger a defragmentation manually when you're feeling like a control freak.

Start by opening the Disk Defragmenter main screen. You can get there via the Control Panel, or from the Start screen. Type "disk defrag" and select Settings under the search box. In the search results, click Defragment and optimize your drives.


The Disk Defragmenter window opens (as shown above). From here you can either adjust the schedule or trigger defragmentation manually:

• Adjust the schedule. Click Configure schedule. Authenticate yourself if necessary. A screen appears, showing that Windows ordinarily defrags your disk late every Wednesday night (at 1 a.m., in fact). You can use the pop-up menus here to specify a Weekly, Daily, or Monthly schedule, complete with day-of-week and time-of-day options. Click OK, and then OK again.

• Manually. Click Defragment disk; the defragmenter does its work. Depending on the size of your hard disk, your processor speed, and the amount of fragmentation, it will take anywhere from several minutes to several hours.

Tip: During the defragmentation process, Windows picks up pieces of your files and temporarily sets them down in a different spot, like somebody trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle. If your hard drive is very full, defragmenting will take a lot longer than if you have some empty space available — and if there's not enough free disk space, Windows can't do the job completely. Before you run Disk Defragmenter, use Disk Cleanup and make as much free disk space as possible.

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It has taken me years to learn specific techniques, and develop my skills as a makeup artist. Overtime there are a few tips I have picked-up that have taught me to be more effective in my application. I have learned that you don't have to be a professional to apply makeup that looks beautiful and natural. These tips and tricks will not only save you time, but will enhance your looks in the process.

1) De-clump Mascara I am a big supporter of replacing your mascara every month; however, sometimes all we have is that clumpy tube we keep meaning to replace. If you find yourself in this situation just put a few drops of Visine into your mascara. This will help break up the clumps, and your mascara will be working like new until you get the chance to replace it.

2) Business Card Eye Stencil I learned this trick in makeup school and I have been using it ever since. I use a business card to create sharper defined lines for my eye shadow when I am looking for something a bit more dramatic. This trick works great for creating a cat eye effect.

3) Tightlining In the everlasting pursuit for longer, thicker, and fuller lashes, there is a very easy makeup trick to help us achieve this. Often referred to as the invisible liner, tightlining is the method of lining your upper waterline instead of above your lashes to give the appearance of thicker lashes. The image to the right shows an eye without tightlining (top) and one with tightlining (bottom). While the difference is subtle the overall look goes a long way.

4) Eye Shadow That Pops Ever buy a vibrant color of eye shadow and when you apply it you notice it looks anything but vibrant? The trick is to apply a cream color base coat all over your lid before applying eye shadow. This base with allow for the truest color of the eye shadow to appear on your lid. I personally love the MAC Paint Pot in the color Painterly.

5) Airbrushing Without an Airbrush The beautyblender is a reusable makeup sponge that allows for even and effortless foundation application. It leaves you with similar effects to that of airbrushing and will never leave streaks in your skin the way a brush can. It is fast, effective, easy to clean, and goes strong for months before it needs replacing.

6) Heat Up That Lash Curler Blast a hairdryer onto your (metal) lash curler for no more than 3-4 seconds before using. Heating up your lash curler ever so slightly will have a similar effect on your lashes that a curling iron would have on your hair.

7) Powder on Lashes A little bit of baby powder on your lashes before you put on your mascara can transform the thickness of your lashes. Just a small dusting of powder before a couple coats of mascara will provide you with a noticeable difference in the thickness of your lashes.

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After a recent rumor suggested that the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 may be delayed because Apple is facing supply issues related to the phone’s battery, a new report now says that Apple will only manufacture a limited run of the bigger model. G 4 Games has picked up reports from Chinese media via Weibo that say that Apple will only make 10 million iPhone 6 phablets at launch. These iPhones will have a 5.44-inch display covered by Sapphire glass, which may be the reason only a limited number of handsets will be mass-produced.

Apparently, the Sapphire crystal on the bigger iPhone is a lot more expensive to produce than glass, and will drive up the cost of the handset. In China, the 16GB 5.5-inch iPhone 6 could cost as much as 8,000 yuan (around $1,285) unlocked, with the Sapphire screen supposedly costing Apple 1,743 yuan (around $280).

Earlier this year, Gorilla Glass maker Corning bashed Sapphire glass, saying that its high price makes it a rather prohibitive material for mobile device makers.

Apple has its own Sapphire plant in Arizona, where it has started producing small quantities of such glass. Previous reports revealed that Apple will be able to produce between 100 million and 200 million Sapphire displays per year at its Arizona plant, although that may only happen once the plant is fully operational.

The new reports from China seem to somewhat confirm an earlier report from Ming-Chi Kuo. The analyst said that the iPhone 6 phablet would be launched only late in the last quarter of the year, revealing that only the 64GB version of the 5.5-inch device would actually have Sapphire glass. However, the new report from China doesn’t single out any iPhone 6 phablet version, when it comes to Sapphire display use.

In the future, Kuo said, Apple will equip all its iPhones with Sapphire glass.

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