How-to

Use Postable to send personalized thank-you cards

Last year I wrote about how using Postable makes managing your address book less of a hassle. The service lets you request contact information from friends and family so you can easily send letters, cards, and gifts, knowing they're headed to the correct destination.

A recent update to Postable adds the ability to send thank-you cards to those who deserve a little gratitude, for $2 plus postage. With your address book stored in Postable, sending cards is supereasy. Here's how to get started:

Share pics quickly on Imgur with a Chrome extension

Imgur is one of those sites that becomes a huge time sink if you let it. For some reason, browsing the random photos that people upload is really addictive, and so is reading the comments on said photos.

If you like to share your own images, you probably already know there are four ways to do so: uploading from your computer, putting in a URL, dragging and dropping, or with the paste command. But if you notice that you're often sharing pictures you find online, whether they're in your Facebook Timeline or just random spots on the Web, … Read more

Add handwritten notes in Polaris Office on Galaxy Note devices

Sometimes only so much explaining can be done with text on the screen. Adding a handwritten drawing or diagram can help pull together and solidify an idea. This is especially true when you're following along on a document that was given to you, like a business plan or notes for a class.

Polaris Office works with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe PDF files. When using this app on a Galaxy Note series device, you can use the included S Pen to draw directly in your documents. Here's how:

First, open a document or presentation in Polaris … Read more

Hooked Up: Check out the set of NCIS with Pauley Perrette and her tech toys

In this week's episode of Hooked Up, Kevin Frazier hangs out on the set of "NCIS" with actress Pauley Perrette, who plays Abby Sciuto, the show's fan-favorite quirky forensic scientist. She talks about her role as the social media ambassador for CBS during "Tweet Week" and how she used Twitter to help keep the Hope Gardens shelter for families open.

Pauley bring hers own tech on set, including the dirtiest Macbook you've probably ever seen, and she shows us some of the fun set pieces in Abby's lab. She also talks about … Read more

Take creative photos with the HTC One

One of my favorite features on the HTC One is its camera. Beyond the picture quality, which is great, HTC really went the extra mile to pack in a bunch of cool software extras.

Two of these extras that really caught my eye are called Sequence Shot and Zoe, and you can see them in action in the above video.

Using the Sequence Shot feature allows you to composite multiple images into one picture. The trick to this one is to hold still and fire off a bunch of snapshots by holding down the camera button. This will create a … Read more

Set up quick access to the Galaxy S3 or Note 2 camera

This How To isn't about lock-screen widgets. Yes, they are exciting. And yes, they bring additional functionality to your lock screen -- but unfortunately, a lot of people have not had their devices updated to Android 4.2 as of yet. If you have, check out Jason Cipriani's post on how to set up lock-screen widgets.

Instead, let's work with the wonderful world of TouchWiz that comes preloaded on your Samsung Galaxy S3 or Note 2. TouchWiz, in short, is a home replacement for Android (think Facebook Home), that adds proprietary theming and options. … Read more

Set up Reading Mode on the Galaxy Note 8

Using a tablet as an e-reader can save you money and lighten your load while on the go. Unfortunately, a lot of tablets aren't optimized for reading text for long periods of time (like e-books, RSS feeds, or just long Web posts) and may cause mild eyestrain. Luckily, the Galaxy Note 8 comes with a feature to help solve this issue: Reading Mode.

However, Reading Mode isn't turned on for all of your apps by tapping on the icon in the notification panel. Why doesn't this mode work in all apps by default? No idea, but fixing … Read more

Customize BlinkFeed for HTC One

For the HTC One, HTC designed a news feed widget called BlinkFeed that pulls in top stories from around the Web, as well as social feeds, such as Twitter and Facebook. It's a good-looking piece of software, and for better or worse, HTC makes it your default home screen on the HTC One.

But if you're less than thrilled by BlinkFeed, I'll show you how to better customize the stories that it pulls in, or even remove it from your home screen.

First off, tap the home button to make sure you're at the top of … Read more

Add Google Now style to New Tab page in Chrome

The abundance of unused white space on the New Tab page in Chrome lends developers ample options for sprucing it up. While the extension I'm about to suggest isn't anything groundbreaking, it's definitely one of the better options out there in terms of usefulness.

Literally called "New Tab Page," this Chrome extension makes your New Tab useful and attractive but doesn't gain any creativity points for its name. Installing the extension is quick: just head to the entry for New Tab Page on the Chrome Web Store and click Add to Chrome. … Read more

Let guests DJ your party

I get all panicked when I have to put together music for a party. It's not because I hate music; it's because I love it too much.

Putting together a playlist is like putting my ego on the line. If someone doesn't like a song I picked out -- or just fails to love it as much as I hoped they would -- it has the power to send me into a depressive spiral of self-loathing.

I'm weird that way. I could never make it as a DJ.

That why I was excited to see CNET … Read more