savings

Police told to text to save money

There is something both lovable and just about British policemen.

They roam the streets, dispensing righteousness, without the aid of a gun. Which makes it safer for the average British citizen to know that if they happen to offer a policeman a slurry quip they will not be offed within a nanosecond of the punchline.

However, it seems as if the British police is struggling to make ends meet, technologically speaking. For the Daily Mail solemnly reports that bobbies on the beat are being trained to text to save money.

You see, British policemen have radios attached to their lapels. … Read more

Tech CEOs find $1 trillion in government savings

The Tech CEO Council, a group made up of top industry CEOs, including Dell's Michael Dell, Intel's Paul Otellini, and Motorola's Greg Brown, has laid out an extensive plan that could help the U.S. government save $1 trillion over the next decade.

Dubbed "One Trillion Reasons," the initiative outlines seven areas where the U.S. government could cut costs or revamp its operational processes to save taxpayers money over the long term. The organization shared its findings with the Obama administration's economic team and the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

"… Read more

MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on boot camp drivers not installing on MacBook systems, how to undo the Terminal command to disable DNS prefetching in Safari, black rectangles appearing over Finder items, and how many CPU settings are recommended for use with Windows XP in Parallels Desktop.

Question: Boot Camp drivers not installing on MacBook

MacFixIt reader "Michelle" asks:

I have a Core duo first-generation MacBook (one of the black ones). I have recently decided to put Windows on my Mac for software incompatibility … Read more

Apple updates iWork for iPad with support for MobileMe iDisk, more native Office formats

Apple has released a new update for iWork on iPad that adds support for saving documents to MobileMe iDisk as well as the option to export documents in more native Microsoft Office formats.

With Apple pushing to sell the iPad as more than just a consumption tool, these important updates to the flagship productivity suite on the touch-screen tablet indicate that Apple is serious about achieving its goal.

The 1.2 update for iWork gives Keynote and Numbers the capability to export to comparable native Microsoft Office formats for PowerPoint and Excel. Pages previously supported exporting to Word formatted documents.… Read more

Saved by Twitter

  Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded: Google TV coming this Fall Verizon has a sweet deal for the Samsung Fascinate Nintendo set to surprise the gaming world again Internet Explorer 9 will debut next week Twitter to the rescue

Hot keys for music listening

SizzlingKeys is a free background app that lets you control iTunes playback with hot keys, even when you're in another application.

SizzlingKeys lets you program nine global hot keys: play/pause, previous and next track, volume up and down, show/hide iTunes, show playlists, search, mute, and the ingenious "Almost Mute," with a customizable Almost-Mute level. The app also lets you assign hot keys for rating tracks, and it will display an optional, temporary floating window (with the track info and art). You can also set SizzlingKeys to automatically launch iTunes when you press your play/pause … Read more

BlackBerry Torch already being sold at discount

The BlackBerry Torch, which launched Thursday, is being offered at a discount on Amazon.com and other online retailers.

According to Amazon's Torch page, the smartphone is being sold for $99.99--as of this writing. The device's official price is $199.99.

The smartphone from Research In Motion is being offered for $99.99 at Wirefly, as well. At AT&T stores and on AT&T's Web site, the device is still selling for $199.99 with a two-year contract.

On Monday, meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported that analysts were disappointed with Torch sales. … Read more

Google's Net neutrality ideas meet Raging Grannies

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Net neutrality is a difficult concept to sum up in a pithy slogan. But it was a nice day for a protest in Northern California.

Several dozen people gathered Friday here in Charleston Park--a public park steps from the Googleplex--to protest Google's proposed Net neutrality guidelines developed with Verizon Communications. They trotted out the usual "hey hey, ho ho" and "what do we want/when do we want it" chants, hoping to make their voices heard as about two dozen Googlers on their lunch breaks watched in bemusement.

The group was not … Read more

Sync up your drives daily

ChronoSync is a syncing and backup utility with high-powered features underneath a novice-friendly interface. Along with the ChronoAgent companion app, it's especially useful for anyone trying to sync folders and files between multiple computers.

At its most basic, ChronoSync lets you pick a target disk, folder, or file that you want to back up--the "left target" in ChronoSync's visual, left-right interface--and then another disk, folder, or file where you want the new backup located (the "right target"). But ChronoSync doesn't stop there: you can easily swap directions, do a "blind" backup (… Read more