The Macworld expo is not what it once was, but you wouldn't know it from the excitement from both vendors and Mac faithful who attended this year's show.

Macworld 2012 started today at Moscone Center North in San Francisco. Though Macworld no longer attracts the big crowds and big-name vendors it once did, I saw plenty of excited vendors and show goers checking out the latest wares for Mac and other Apple products.

When Apple stopped presenting at Macworld in 2009, everyone wondered what would become of the show. As Apple's launching point for new products until 2009, Macworlds of the past often took up two giant rooms at Moscone Center and everyone involved with making Macs, iPhones, and the products that surround them would come for the event. Ever since Apple stopped showing at Macworld and making product announcements on its own, the show has lost some of its magic, but you wouldn't know that by talking to some of the vendors on the floor.

In this slideshow, I give you a taste of what it's like to walk around the floor from my perspective. I couldn't take a picture of everything, but hopefully it will give those who have never been an idea of what it's like to check out the current state of the yearly Macworld show.

A visit to the Macworld 2012 floor (photos)

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When troubleshooting OS X it helps to be prepared with an arsenal of tools that can help narrow down what exactly is contributing to the problems at hand. Having tools that help you investigate files, monitor system events and input or output, and control aspects of the hardware is very useful to have when trying to perform troubleshooting tasks.

If you want--or need--to troubleshoot a problem with your Mac, here are some recommended tools. You don't need to keep these on your system at all times, but knowing they're available makes them easy to access in the event a problem arises.

• Pacifist This tool is a great option for accessing the contents of OS X installation packages. Though it can be used as a replacement for Apple's Installer program, its main benefit is the ability to extract individual files and folders from packages, thereby allowing you to replace missing programs and system files without needing to reinstall OS X. While Time Machine and other full-system backups help prevent the need to do this, there are still times when this is useful to have. In addition to managing OS X installations, Pacifist can help you identify the exact contents of third-party installation packages, which may help you determine what exactly is being installed on your system and where.
• fseventer The OS ... [Read more]

Streaming radio site Slacker Radio has a brand-new station that might get its more softhearted listeners in the mood for some love-making.

The new DJ-curated "Old School R&B" station takes you back in time with some of the silkiest hits from artists like Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Etta James. But '80s babies (like me), don't fret, because the station also extends into our golden era with more-contemporary, yet still decidedly old-school, crooners like Mint Condition, Boyz II Men, and Maxwell.

Curated and socially programmed stations are available free to all Slacker users, through both the Web and Slacker's mobile apps (iPhone | Android | BlackBerry). Slacker also offers a premium account tier for $9.99 per month, which adds on-demand listening options, similar to Spotify.

McAfee Mobile Security 2.0

The latest update to McAfee Mobile Security opens a window onto app permissions and gives you a filter to screen out annoying communiques.

McAfee Mobile Security 2.0 (download for Android) arrived in the Android Market three days ago, and brings two new features to its already-robust set of options for Android, BlackBerry, and Symbian users. The new App Protection interprets how apps handle your personal and private data, and tells you whether those app permissions are risky. What it doesn't do is advise you what to do about those risks, but to be fair, none of the other permissions scanners available do, either.

The BlackBerry and Symbian versions will be available soon, according to McAfee. The BlackBerry version is due next Wednesday, although the Symbian version remains unscheduled.

There's also a new call and text-messaging filter that blocks calls and texts, based on a basic blacklist. Input a number, and never hear from it again. Features that have carried over from the previous version include antivirus scanning; anti-spyware and anti-phishing guards; Potentially Unwanted Program protection for preventing comm... [Read more]

Soften the blow of forgetting to turn off your ringtones and notifications on Android.

You may recall the violinist who played the Nokia ringtone after a member of the audience forgot to silence his phone. Luckily, this gentleman had a sense of humor and decided to make light of the situation. Unfortunately, not everyone is so forgiving of interruptions. If you don't want to be that person, your best course of action is to completely silence or turn off your phone. But what if you forget?

Most people don't turn off their phone notifications until they arrive at their destination. This is likely why many movie theaters show a cute animated feature about silencing electronic devices before the actual movie starts. Since there isn't going to be an animated film to remind you each time your phone needs to be silenced, you can grab an app to help you out. If everything around you is relatively quiet, the app will lower the volume levels of ringtones and alerts.This is useful if your ringtone is set very high because your usual surroundings are very noisy (like a busy office, or even outdoors).

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 1: Download RingDimmer from the Android Market.

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Do you want to become a real-life guitar hero, instead of just a virtual one on your gaming console?

Gibson Guitar, the world-renowned guitar maker, has an Android app that will help you learn to play a real guitar. Available for free in the Android Market, the Gibson Learn & Master Guitar app has just about everything a beginner could ask for. It even has video lessons for intermediate and advanced guitarists.

Tuner The first tab of the Gibson Guitar app is a guitar tuner, which you can use in chromatic or simple mode. You can also set the tunings to all notes, standard EADGBE, or others.

Metronome The second tab is the metronome that can help you establish a rhythm while you play. The time signature can be set to none, 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4. The beats-per-minute (BPM) settings range from 1 to 225 and you can even set your own tempo just by tapping on the Tap Tempo button.

Chords The third tab of the app is a library of chord charts that show you where to place your fingers on the fretboard, so you can practice playing chords (open and barre).

Lessons The fourth tab contains video lessons that are linked to 21 high-quality YouTube videos.

Bring the functionality of reopening your last browser tab to windows on your computer.

When organizing a lot of files, you'll also probably have a lot of different windows open. Move the pictures to this directory, move these documents to that work folder...oops, closed that work folder. Now you need to dig back through the directory hierarchy to open it and make your drag-and-drop organization method fast again. This annoying occurrence can be prevented with a simple app for Windows that will let you reopen your last-closed window.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 1: Download and extract UndoClose.

Step 2: Run the program by double-clicking on the program icon in the directory you extracted it to.

Step 3: Right-click on the System Tray icon and click on Settings from the menu that appears.

Step 4: Adjust the hot keys by first clicking on the area where the current hot key is displayed, and then pressing your new desired key combination. Click on the Change button to save these hot keys.

Step... [Read more]

Google hopes to cut down on Web browsers' autofill confusion.

I'll be honest here. I disabled Chrome's autofill ability. I hate it.

Maybe it's because I have too many e-mail addresses, or even regular addresses--I moved a lot in the last couple years. Maybe it's because my wife and I use the same computer. Maybe it's because my international life involves too many formats for phone numbers, postal codes, and codes guichet.

But filling out forms is certainly tedious, so I was delighted to hear that there's going to be a way for Web developers to straighten this out.

Specifically, Google and others are working on a technology that will label fields on Web pages so that browsers can know what data they're supposed to fill in--e-mail address, phone number, or first name, for example.

Support for the "experimental" technology is now built into Chrome, Google programmer Ilya Sherman said in a blog post yesterday. Sherman also encouraged Web programmers to try the autofill feature out.

Next up: standardization.

"We've been working on this design in collaboration with several ... [Read more]

Page-load speeds for the top 2,000 retail sites in 2011 loaded on average in 10 seconds, a Strangeloop study found. The median speed was 8.4 seconds.

Many Web developers have gotten the message: a faster site means people buy more, read more, interact more, and return more.

But apparently the message hasn't sunk in far enough, because the top 2,000 retail Web sites still take 10 seconds to load on average, according to a study by Strangeloop Networks released yesterday. The list of the top retail sites comes from Amazon's Alexa list of top sites.

Strangeloop is in the business of helping customers speed up their Web sites, so it has an agenda to push, but that shouldn't deter developers from taking a look at the study's findings.

One big issue in particular jumped out at me after a chat with Strangeloop President Joshua Bixby: Web developers should test their pages the way their readers see it, not the way they see it on their own machines.

Strangeloop's study uses a speed-testing tool called WebPagetest developed by Patrick Meenan, who started it at AOL but who now works for Google. That test adds delays called latency to round-... [Read more]