New Technology : Your TV Viewing Habits Are Changing, As Are Nielsen Ratings

tv-habits-nielsen

Nielsen – the company that monitors how television shows perform – has started to track online television streams. And it’s about time too. Announced in The Wall Street Journal last week, the TV ratings giant will be monitoring nearly 1,000 shows across Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu. Nielsen hopes that this will allow studios to negotiate higher royalties for shows that perform exceptionally well. The data being gathered is relatively limited. It relates to a tiny portion of the content available, and the company is not going to be capturing data from mobile users, or people living outside of the...

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New Technology : Leaving Voicemails, and Other Prickish Phone Habits

prickish-phone-habits

Your phone rings — yes some people like use their phones to make calls — so you look down and see it’s a call from “Unknown Number”. You’re a bit busy so you can’t answer it right now, so it rings out. 30 seconds later you get a text message: “You have one new voicemail.” Your day is off to a bad start. Half an hour later when you get a chance, you listen to the voicemail. It’s you cousin Brian and he just says, “Hey it’s Brian, give me a call back.” Thanks for that Brian. He’s your cousin so...

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New Technology : Deals & Tips for Going Back to School with a Windows Device

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Summer days are drawing in and Fall is just around the corner. And that only means one thing: school is coming, so it is time to get prepared. It’s a great time to invest in new hardware and luckily MakeUseOf is here to lend a guiding hand in our favorite subject areas of technology, devices, apps, and deals. Windows 10: Back to School If you are heading into a new school or starting a new course, you want to be equipped. It isn’t as easy as buying a pad and pen as our classrooms increase their digital device usage, with some schools providing...

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New Technology : No Sound in Windows 10? Here’s How to Quickly Fix Digital Deafness

windows-10-no-sound

A Reader Asks: After the Windows 10 upgrade process completes, my rear Dolby Surround Sound 5.1 speakers don’t work. I found out about the issue when iTunes and Windows Media player didn’t play sound out of the rear speakers after the upgrade. The speakers produce sound when they are tested in Control Panel/Sound/Manage Audio Devices/Configure, but the applications do not seem to use them. How can I get the applications to use all the speakers? I also configured the sound system to use 5.1 Dolby Surround in Speaker Setup (sound standards explained) and tested that all speakers are working properly. As...

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New Technology : How to Free Up Storage Space to Run Windows 10

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It doesn’t take long for a drive to be full of data, which can be a problem when you want to upgrade to Windows 10. We’re here to offer some advice on how you clean out your system to make room for Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system. If you’re already running Windows 10, but are finding yourself tight on storage space, we’ve delved into the features that the operating system offers to help you free up your drives and make room for the data you actually need. If you had a problem upgrading to Windows 10 due to lack of...

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New Technology : How to Effectively Manage Your Chromebook’s Notifications

chromebook-notifications

Notifications can be extremely useful – making sure you never miss an email, message, or reminder. On the other hand, very few people go to the trouble of setting up their smart device’s notifications correctly. It means the important stuff is drowned out in sea of advertising and unimportant Pinterest updates. Laptops used to be safe from the problem, but that’s starting to change. Microsoft introduced an (acclaimed) universal notification center with their Windows 10 release, and now Google are getting their Chromebooks on board as well. Here we take a look at how to effectively manage your Chromebook’s notifications....

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New Technology : Free eBook: ‘Real-World Time Management’

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Do you struggle with managing time? Let’s be honest, no one is perfectly skilled at making sure they’re working efficiently. It’s hard to prioritize what tasks are most important, and all too often, we end up feeling overwhelmed, and the stress causes us to get even less done! So what can you do? Simply download this free eBook called “Real-World Time Management” and learn the skills you need to be a time management master. By the time you make it through this interesting and in-depth book, you’ll be ready to tackle your workday more efficiently than you ever thought possible....

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New Technology : 7 Photos You Can Take for a Perfect Desktop Wallpaper

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If you’re on the hunt for the perfect wallpaper for your PC or tablet, I’m going to show you how you can take your own picture that’ll be as good or better than any wallpaper you could download from the web. There are some things that professional photographers are great at, but I am convinced that only a small percentage of them truly appreciate what makes a good desktop wallpaper. I say this as someone who is not a professional photographer, but an avid computer user who spends 15 to 17 hours on a computer every day. “Who cares? It’s just a wallpaper.”...

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New Technology : E-Blue Budget Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review and Giveaway

e-blue mecahnical keyboard featured

The keyboard is the single most overlooked peripheral, yet a good keyboard can make the difference between a productive computing experience and a downright frustrating one. Mechanical keyboards offer the best experience, and due to the higher requirements, mechanical gaming keyboards even more so. But they can be expensive. Today we take a look at a budget gaming keyboard, the E-Blue K727, which has some essential gaming features as well as some more frivolous ones. Available for $68 from GearBest.com, the E-Blue K727 “Mazer” is supplied with blue, red, black or brown cherry MX switches (what’s the difference?), and with white...

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New Technology : How to Add More RAM to Your Android Device with a MicroSD Card

android-ram-sd

Your Android device most likely came with 16GB of storage, but it’s the RAM that really affects what you can do with it. Most high-end Android devices ship with 2GB or more of RAM, but some cheaper devices might have only 1GB of RAM or even 512MB in some cases. Unlike a PC, however, you can’t increase RAM. Or can you? Why Do You Need More RAM? The importance of additional RAM cannot be overstated. While more storage space gives you more photos, more MP3s, or more video clips, additional RAM helps the processor to work more quickly, thereby aiding in...

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