Scott is a writer of various things -- documentation, articles, essays, and reviews -- based in Toronto, Canada. He loves to play with tech, and to write about it too. Scott hasn't snagged that elusive book contract. Yet.
Even if you’re all thumbs when it comes to drawing, there will come a time when you need to create a diagram or two. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a software developer, web designer, or a technical writer. It all comes down to arranging blocks and images on a canvas to explain something. There […]
Dropbox is more than simply a convenient way to share, store, and sync files. Thanks to some clever individuals in the development community, you can do much more with Dropbox. One of the more interesting and useful third-party applications for Dropbox is DropPages. It turns Dropbox into a simple web server, letting you publish static […]
There comes a time when you need to convert one or more files to another format. Say, for example, you have a bunch of .rtf files that you want to turn into OpenDocument files. Chances are you don’t need to do that too often, but when the time comes, opening each file in a word […]
QR Codes. They look like barcodes that have gotten wet and smudged. You’ve probably seen them. In fact, they’re everywhere: on the web, in print ads, on business cards, and even on the sides of buildings. All you need to do is scan a QR code with your smartphone and you’re either taken to a […]
Whether you’re a professional web developer or someone who maintains their own website(s), chances are you do most of your work on a desktop or laptop. Which makes sense, seeing as how there are any number of great web development tools for various operating systems. But what happens if you need to make some changes […]
One of the applications that’s missing from the Linux desktop is a good WYSIWYG HTML editor. There have been a few, like NVU and KompoZer, but they haven’t been actively developed for a while. Enter BlueGriffon. Built on top of Gecko (the rendering engine used by Firefox), BlueGriffon enables you to create web pages using […]
Sometimes, you run into a problem that you just can’t work through with mental brute force alone. Brainstorming with others works, but that’s not always an option. One popular and effective way of beating a problem or releasing your creativity is mindmapping. While you can go old school and use pen and paper, there is […]
At some point, you’re probably going to do some work on the web — whether you plan to or not. That work could be writing a blog post or article, adding a page to a web site, or regularly writing for a site like Make Tech Easier. No matter what you do, knowing some HTML […]
No matter where you turn, people seem to be talking about the cloud. And while cloud computing does have its attractions and advantages, there are still a few concerns about it. Like what? Well, your data is in someone else’s hands. And what happens if a service you’re using closes up shop, denies you access […]
If you’re like most people, then you probably have more than a couple of passwords. A lot more. Passwords for email services, entertainment sites, web services, and things like that. The problem with passwords is that they can be hard to remember. Or, at least, it’s hard to keep track of which password you use […]
What’s one of the most frustrating things about using any online service? Getting your data out of a service. With some, that can be fairly easy. With many others, it can be difficult, if not impossible. But you should be able to get your information – no matter what the information is – out of […]
Search engines come. Search engines go. Remember Cuil? And when was the last time you used Lycos? While Google, Bing, and Yahoo! are arguably the leaders in search, there are literally dozens of search engines out there. Many of those engines track your search history and, based on that history, put you in what’s been […]
Money. It’s something that most of us don’t have enough of. And what we have, we want to hold on to and keep track of. For many people, an old fashioned spreadsheet is perfect for their needs. The rest of us need a little something more. Not with the features, of say, ,KyMyMoney or GNUCash […]
In mid-June 2011, something interesting happened. The number of blogs hosted by a scrappy upstart blogging platform called Tumblr surpassed those of the venerable (and immensely popular) WordPress.com. That was an impressive feat, considering Tumblr was launched over four years after WordPress.com. The content on Tumblr consists of tumblelogs, which are somewhere between full-blown blogs […]
Using a USB cable to move files between your Android device and your computer is … well, it’s so early 2000s, isn’t it? With wifi, if not ubiquitous, then widespread, there’s no reason why you should need to plug your device into your computer to do anything. As long as you have some wifi available […]
With the growing popularity of ebook readers like the Kindle and iPad, more and more people are reading on a screen rather than from printed books. And more and more authors are getting into the act. Why not you? Maybe you’re a budding author who wants to self publish. Or maybe you’re a software developer […]
Do you have DVDs that you want to back up or take portable? Of course you do. Well, ripping those DVDs doesn’t have to be a major chore. In fact, ripping DVDs can be quite easy. If you’re a Linux user, you have a number of excellent options. And you can turn to the command […]
No matter who you are – software developer, technical writer, blogger, or just someone wanting to show off their cool desktop — you need to take the occasional screen capture. There are a large number of commercial, free, and Open Source screen capture tools out there. They range from bare bones apps to ones that […]