40Tech

Both the iOS App Store and the Android Market offer an abundance of camera apps. There are so many, that it takes either great functionality or a unique twist for an app to stand out. One that does so is Paper Camera, available as an Android and an iPhone/iPad app. Paper Camera lets you use your camera to output real time cartoon and painting effects that have to be seen to appreciated.

You’ve got your new Mac, and want to take a screenshot. Where’d that Print Screen key go? Things work a bit differently on the Mac. You could go with a third party solution, such as Skitch or Littlesnapper. Or, you could use your Mac’s built in ability to take screenshots. There are three different ways to take a screenshot on your Mac, by holding down key combinations. All screenshots go to your desktop by default.

In a recent TWiT podcast, one of the hosts mentioned WordPerfect 5.1 as an all-time great piece of software. That got my mind racing, trying to think of some great apps that I’ve used over the years. While those of us in the 40+ age bracket might have a longer timeline of app usage to draw from, we probably all have our favorite apps. What are yours?

If you ever play around with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and don’t want to set up a testing environment, check out JSFiddle. JSFiddle is a web app that lets you input HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, hit a button, and see the results of your code.

Early in my Mac life, I looked at ten apps that were essential to me at the time. Looking at that list, I realize that my usage has changed a bit over time. Since then, the Mac App Store was born as well. A recent post by Dan Gold on Google+ inspired me to try to list my ten favorite App Store apps. It was hard narrowing that list down to just ten, and even harder ranking these from 1 to 10. Here’s what I came up with.

I’ve recently started having issues with my WiFi network, such as dropouts and slowness. One of the first steps I’ve taken to address the problem is to try to determine if I’m getting interference from other networks. To see nearby networks, and what channels they’re using, I’ve found WiFi Stumbler to be valuable.

If you tried to visit 40Tech today, you saw that we went dark from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST. We turned out the lights, shutting off the site, to join the online protest again SOPA and PIPA. For a look at SOPA and PIPA, check out this video.

Regardless of some cool input tools, like Swype, entering text and controlling your mobile phone can still be cumbersome. On Android at least, you have the option of controlling your phone right from your computer, using AirDroid. AirDroid won’t let you do access all of your phone’s functions, but the list of available features is pretty impressive.

One of the bigger security-related stories over the past week concerns a vulnerability in WiFi Protected Setup (WPS). WPS is designed to be an easy way for inexperienced users to set up a secure network, using methods such as inputing a PIN from your router into your computer or other device. The problem is that the PIN, which is 8 digits long, is susceptible to brute force attacks. In fact, a free tool named Reaver can crack that PIN in just a few hours. This vulnerability exists regardless of the kind of security you’re using on your network, so even WPA2 is at risk. This means that the kid next door could get Reaver running, go off and watch a movie, and a few hours later he is in your network. The solution? Turn off WPS. Unfortunately, you can’t do this with modern Linksys routers.

As I continue my now year-old journey as a Mac user, I’ve blogged about a few tips that I’ve stumbled upon, such as how to drag text onto your desktop and change it into a text note, how to reveal the dock and menu bar when using full screen apps in Lion, and how to add folders to the Finder sidebar. Many of these tips are probably “Duh!” moments to seasoned Mac users, but for those of us who come from the Windows world, they aren’t so obvious. It’s time to add another simple but important one to the list – how to change your Mac’s default email client and web browser.