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(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

It's that time of the year again, when savvy shoppers like yourself head to your favorite online retailers to avoid the ridiculous shenanigans and flesh-pressing of Black Friday. But just because you know enough to buy online doesn't mean that there aren't some good tips worth paying attention to. Here are a few worth repeating for habitual online shoppers.

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Change your passwords now because chances are, you haven't in a long time. Change your e-mail account password, change your banking password, and change the passwords for online sh... [Read more]

With the holiday season fully underway, there's a good chance many of you are planning to pick up a new Android phone or tablet. Heck, you might even be looking into one of these new "phablet" thingies that people are talking about. Whatever the case may be, if you're rocking a new Android device, there's no question you're going to want to some killer apps to test its limits. Lucky for you, we've put together a list of some of the hottest ones.

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(Credit: Screenshot by Jaymar Cabebe/CNET)

Amazon Cloud Drive Photos (free) Relatively new to the Android platform is the Amazon Cloud Drive Photos app, which links to your Amazon account and lets you store photos directly from your mobile device to the cloud. For existing users of Amazon Cloud Drive, it provides a more streamlined way of getting your photos from your mobile device to your cloud account. For new users, it provides a nice, simple way to free some storage space on your phone or tablet. While the relatively young app is far from perfect (it doesn't let you rename files or move items between folders), it is easy to use, and it syncs to the cloud reliably. Plus, Amazon offers new users 5 GB of free storage space, which is reason enough to give it a try.

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(Credit: Screensh... [Read more]

Comcast's updated Xfinity TV Player app makes it a snap to download select movies and TV shows for offline viewing.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET)

There are plenty of apps that can stream movies and TV shows to your tablet or smartphone -- Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, HBO Go, Hulu Plus, Netflix... shall I go on? -- but very few that let you download content for offline viewing.

That's kind of a bummer, because it means if you want to watch something on, say, an airplane, you have little choice but to buy from iTunes or rip from DVDs.

If you're a Comcast subscriber, now you have another option. The newly updated Comcast Xfinity TV Player app (Android|iOS) now offers the enviable ability to download movies and TV shows from four networks: Encore, MoviePlex, Showtime, and Starz.

That's kind of a big deal. And it works, too, at least on the iPad and Samsung Galaxy S III that I used for testing. As long as you already have those channels as part of your Comcast subscription, you'll see a Download button alongside the Play button that appears when you browse the app's on-demand content.

The app gives you a choice between "medium" and "highest" quality for your downloads, the latter potentially chewing ... [Read more]

How to integrate Facebook Messenger directly into Firefox

Firefox and Facebook Messenger now can be besties, if you want them to.

Firefox 17 debuted yesterday (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) with a new social API that lets social-networking services hook deeply into the browser.

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• Like? New Firefox adds Facebook integration[Read more]
  
  

Open Hexagon - Dodge collapsing walls - Download Video Previews

Open Hexagon is a polygonal endurance run that draws heavy inspiration from Terry Cavanagh's Hexagon. Much like its former Web app game, Open Hexagon challenges players in a collapsing environment of walls that cave in. Your goal is to keep a dinky little triangle alive by orbiting around the core while dodging walls and crushing barriers. The game's overall design is a simple pixelated collection of lines and shapes, with some added chiptune tracks to appease the eardrums of our inner geek.

Since its release, the developer, Vittorio Romeo of Vee Software, has received mixed reactions for releasing the game. Cavanagh had already publicly announced that his own PC version was already in the pipeline, so the news of someone beating him to the punch might have been a surprise. In either case, things seem to have been sorted out between Romeo and the original creator, and none of this stops you from grabbing another great take on an already fun game.

Download the game or check out the video preview and sound off with your thoughts.

[Read more]

Apple will be ending its beta program on December 14 for testing its new Messages service that is part of OS X Mountain Lion and iOS.

In releases of OS X prior to Mountain Lion, Apple included its iChat instant messaging program that consolidated numerous messaging services such as Jabber, AIM, and Yahoo chat into one interface; however, this did not integrate with Apple's own iMessage and FaceTime services that it included in the iPhone as alternatives to SMS messaging.

To tackle this gap, Apple released Messages Beta for OS X in February as part of the Mountain Lion developer preview to help test the service. While the service was included with the developer preview, Apple also made a beta program available for Lion, which a number of users adopted and have been using since; however, Apple has announced in recent emails to users that support for this program will end on Friday, December 14.

Dear User, The Messages Beta program for Lion will end on Friday, December 14, 2012. We hope you've enjoyed the opportunity to preview Messages. If you'd like to continue using Messages, upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. Messages is one of many great new apps and features built right into OS X Mountain Lion. Learn More. Thank you for your participation in the Messages Beta program.

This announcement is not the first indication of Apple's impending end of the beta program for Lion. At the annual Developer Conference in June, ... [Read more]