Protect yourself online in three easy steps

Sometimes it may seem safer to go back to the days of the Pony Express rather than deal with the multitude of online threats, but there are some simple steps you can take to minimize the risks you face.

First, get a security suite. CNET gave Avast Free Antivirus 7 (download) and Bitdefender Total Security 2012 (download) Editors' Choice Awards recently, although there are about a dozen good suites, free and paid, out there. Go with one that gets good ratings and that you trust, and make sure that you let it update and scan regularly.

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Second, I strongly recommend using a password manager that's independent of your browser. Not that the browser password managers are known to be risky, because they're not. But third-party man... [Read more]

To longtime Android users such as myself, the name Instagram might not mean much. Sure, we see the vignetted photos invading our Facebook and Twitter streams, and we notice the instagr.am links all over the place, but other than that, we don't really get it. I mean, what is it, exactly? Is it just a bunch of camera filters? Is it a Tumblr-like social network? Well, now that everyone's favorite hipster photo app is available, let's take a close look at how the Android version (download) of this uberpopular app works.

First thing I need to mention is that Instagram is a lot more than just a free photo enhancement app for your phone. It connects its users to a photo-based social network that's more than 30 million users strong. With this powerful social functionality, the app makes it incredibly easy to not just polish and share photos, but also to keep tabs on friends through the built-in Instagram photo stream. So it looks like the answer is yes, Instagram's got a bit of Tumblr blood in it, and that's good.

Start by signing up for Instagram with an e-mail address, username, and password. From there, you can link your account to your Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and Tumblr accounts. But don't worry, whenever you snap a picture, Instagram will still ask you which account(s) you want to share with. Linking just makes it so... [Read more]

After only a few seconds, Shazam can identify the song you're hearing and give you options to buy, share, or listen to previews.

One of the first apps that showed off the power of early iPhones was Shazam, the app that let you hold up your iPhone to "listen" to music playing and could identify the artist and offer you options to buy that music.

Today, Shazam Entertainment announced a new update with Shazam 5.0 that makes the app even better than before. The company says the app now launches a second faster to let you identify media much more quickly. It also can take as little as 1 second to identify media once you touch the button, and even starts "listening" the second you open the app in case you're trying to identify media in a hurry.

Lyrics now sync up better with the audio in version 5.0.

Shazam is no longer limited to music in this latest version. The company says you'll now be able to use the app to identify Shazam-enabled television shows and ads to quickly find out what you're watching and see additional content for the show or ad, and products and apps related to the content. This means that if a show is Shazam-enabled, you can run the app ... [Read more]

Following the recent Flashback malware developments for OS X where unpatched vulnerabilities in the latest Java runtime for OS X were being exploited, Apple has issued an update that brings Java up-to-date and patches these vulnerabilities.

The patch is available via Software Update for systems that have Java installed, but can also be downloaded from the following Apple support Web pages. The update is available only for OS X 10.6 and 10.7, since Apple has stopped supporting prior versions of OS X.

• Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 7
• Java for OS X Lion 2012-001

These updates specifically patch the CVE-2012-0507 vulnerability that was being used by the Flashback malware to exploit Mac systems, but in addition it has patched a number of other vulnerabilities in version 29 of the Java 1.6.0 VM. This latest update should bring the installed version of Java 1.6.0 to version 31.

If you have Java installed, you can check the version in the Java Preferences utility in your /Applications/Utilities/ folder, or you can launch the Terminal and run the command "java -version" to see an output of the current active version on your system.

This update is highly recommended for people with Java ins... [Read more]

Instagram on Android

Instagram has been around since 2010, available only to iOS devices. Android users have been waiting patiently, with repeated promises of an Android version arriving soon.

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While we knew the Android version of Instagram was coming sooner rather than later, with the release being teased just last month at South by Southwest Interactive, the exact release date wasn't clear. Well, the day has finally arrived.

With more than 430,000 Android users on the waiting list, Instagram is now available in Google Play. The app carries with it the same features (except tilt-shift/blur) and a similar user interface to that of the iOS version. Users are able to browse friends' photos, view the popular photos, and upload their own photos, as you woul... [Read more]

Luxahoy shows how developers from Luxurious Animals converted a Flash game into an HTML5 game.

Many developers are ready to dump Flash in favor of Web standards -- and for those who aren't ready, Adobe Systems is throwing its weight behind a new project called CreateJS to ease the transition.

CreateJS is a collection of libraries -- prewritten code, essentially -- that lets people program with Web standards such as HTML5 and JavaScript the way they're accustomed to with Flash. And along with the libraries there's the Toolkit for CreateJS, an extension for Adobe's Flash Pro developer tools that lets programmers work with Flash Pro and then export an HTML/JavaScript version of the creation.

Adobe teamed up with CreateJS programmer Grant Skinner for the toolkit and has added some support for it to its forthcoming Flash Pro CS6 developer software, due to ship later this quarter. And the company has begun showing off the CreateJS approach.

"It allows Flash Professional users to be able to design their assets and create their animations in Flash Professional but to be able to export those to HTML5, enabling them to translate and transition their skills over to HTML5," said Tom Barclay, senior product manager for Flash P... [Read more]

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

My wife and I cleaned out our attic and basement last week, throwing out and donating six years' worth of accumulated clutter. We celebrated each run to the dump as we literally lightened our load. Now our attic isn't as overwhelming, and our basement is less creepy.

I wanted to continue our spring cleaning momentum so I turned to my MacBook Pro, which just surpassed its one-year anniversary. Sure, the amount of garbage I've put on it in the past year can't match the amount of crap I found in my attic and basement, but it is slowing down some. I see the spinning beach ball more than I care to. If your Mac struggles to keep pace from time to time, the following are some ways you can clean and speed it up.

Step 1: Back it up Before you engage in any maintenance, it's always a good idea to back up your data. For Macs, it's easy: grab an external drive and run Time Machine.

Step 2: Check Login Items If your Mac is slow to boot up, the problem may be it simply has too many applications to open that it can't load the OS in a timely fashion. Many applications by default open automatically at startup. Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and then click on the Login Items tab to see... [Read more]