The World Wide Developer's Conference starts on Monday, and while the main focus appears to be on updates to iOS (read my iOS 7 wishlist here) and various Mac hardware, it's highly likely we'll get an update for Mac OS X 10.9 as well. At this point, we don't know what will be announced and we don't even know which "cat" will be associated with the release. Even the picture above (a giant banner currently displayed at Moscone Center) is suspiciously free of any cats at all, so it's hard to tell where Apple is going with Mac OS X. But one thing we do know is that this year is a little different than past releases of Apple's desktop operating system.

Over the past few years, Apple has followed a fairly regular schedule for OS X releases, with the announcement of a new Mac OS in February, and then the release date announced during the WWDC Keynote (with an actual release soon to follow). This year, there was no announcement in the early part of the year, but a report form Daring Fireball said that Apple had pulled developers from the OS X team to work on the big changes in iOS 7, pushing the Mac OS X release to later in the year.

There have been a few stories about what to expect in Mac OS X 10.9, such as ... [Read more]

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The new Gmail features a tabbed interface that sorts e-mail into Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. While this does make your in-box look a bit tidier, it can make the transition to the new style frustrating when it comes e-mail alerts.

Thankfully, you can set alerts for each category, and even disable them for others. When you get an alert on your Android device, you'll know what kind of e-mail you're receiving, and whether you need to read it right now.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

Before you set the individual alerts, you need to make sure that notifications for your Gmail account are enabled. To do this: press the Menu button on your device while in Gmail and choose Settings from the pop-up menu. Next, tap on your account name and make sure the box next to Notifications is checked.

Now you can set the individual alert... [Read more]

Chrome's Google Now notifications must be enabled manually, for the time being.

Google continues to slowly build Google Now into its services. It made the data-rich Now-styled notifications available through an advanced option setting in Chrome for Mac on Thursday, following basic implementation in Chrome for Windows and Chrome OS earlier this year.

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You can activate Google Now notifications in Chrome for Mac by typing chrome://flags into your address bar, scrolling down to the Enable Rich Notifications, and changing the setting to Enable. The setting is limited to the most unstable of the browser's builds, ... [Read more]

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

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When sharing a post from the previous version of Facebook for Android, you may have forgotten to tap the itsy-bitsy people-sharing icon before you sent it off to the Interwebs. This icon controls the settings for who can see your post, be it Public, Friends, or other groups you're part of on Facebook. Fortunately, this icon hasn't gone anywhere, but in case you forget to use it, there's a fix -- and it doesn't involve logging in on the desktop Web site.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET)

First, make sure you have the most recent version of Facebook for Android. Just because you've done all updates from the Google Play Store doesn't necessarily mean that you're using the latest version. Many mobile app updates are done with a staged roll... [Read more]

Woo, woo! The award-winning board game Ticket to Ride is now available for Android.

My awesome brother-in-law Steve introduced me to Ticket to Ride a couple years ago, and I've been hooked ever since. As board games go, it offers a near-perfect blend of strategy and luck-of-the-draw, on par with old classics like Risk and newer ones like Carcassonne.

Then came the iOS version, which CNET ranked among the 30 best iPad games -- and rightly so. It affords a decent single-player experience (something the board version can't) and moves the game along at a much speedier clip (meaning you can play alone or with others without investing quite so much time).

Finally, Ticket to Ride has arrived for Android. And I'm happy to report it's nearly as good as its iOS counterpart, though there's one immediate hitch: It's for tablets only.

Well, sort of. Although it requires a screen resolution of 1,024x600 pixels, and the developer recommends at least 1,280x800, you can indeed play it on a smartphone -- provided it has sufficient resolution. Just keep in mind it'll feel a little cramped. It does when I play it on my iPhone 4S, though that version is optimized... [Read more]