Chromebooks are very capable computers that many dismiss as a glorified web browser. However, those detractors should think outside the box a bit. For many people, the low-cost Chromebook can meet all of their needs. If all you need is a hammer, it is silly to argue that the hammer isn't also a screwdriver. If all you need is to drive nails, the hammer is fine.

One company, Doctor.com, has found that Chromebooks are meeting a need in a certain usage case. In other words, it is the right tool for the job. Even though a Macbook or Windows laptop may offer more features, the extra cost is wasted if the features are not needed.

Are you familiar with the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? Basically, a shepherd boy watching over some sheep thought it would be funny to lie and shout "Wolf!", as a joke. Ultimately, when a wolf really does come, no one believes him and all of the sheep are slaughtered.

Apparently, Microsoft is not aware of this story. The company has been proclaiming Windows XP to be dead and no longer supported over and over again, in an attempt to get users to upgrade. Windows 8.1 has even seen an increase in usage lately, possibly as a result. Today, the company announces that it will issue an Internet Explorer security update for Windows XP. If Microsoft is crying wolf, are XP users the slaughtered sheep?

WindowsX has refreshed its pair of skinning tools with the dual release of Windows 8 UX Pack 8.1 for PCs running Windows 7, and Windows 8 Transformation Pack 8.1 for earlier versions of Windows, including XP.

The latest version of the tools, which aim to give users the Windows 8.1 look and feel in earlier versions of Windows, have been updated to squash bugs and generally improve each pack’s stability.

Lessons can be learned anywhere at anytime. As a child, a visit to the playground can teach you about balance when using the seesaw. You see, if one kid is fat and heavy and the other is light and svelte, the experience will not be ideal. Proper balance is the key.

The same can be said of consumer products. For example, a gold-plated phone would be wonderful, but too expensive. Like the seesaw, a manufacturer must balance price with quality. Today, Logitech announces a revolutionary, modular, iPhone 5/5s case, but sadly it costs a staggering $200. Is it too expensive?

Microsoft has released Script Browser 1.1, an excellent PowerShell ISE add-on which makes it easy to find, view and download PowerShell scripts.

The program equips the ISE with a simple TechNet search tool. Enter a keyword or two here, click Enter and it displays a list of any matches, including script name, rating, description and author. Double-clicking displays more details -- including the script itself -- and you can copy it to the clipboard, or open it in the ISE.

The average private user PC in the UK has 76 different programs from 26 different vendors, which leaves users struggling to keep everything up to date.

Vulnerability management specialist Secunia has published a report on the state of security among PC users in the UK based on scans from Secunia Personal Software Inspector between January and March 2014.

Ouya began life as a Kickstarter darling that everyone was talking about. However, since its actual launch, the little Android gaming console has largely been a non-factor in the market.

Now Playcast may bring a bit more legitimacy to the platform, as the service has begun beta testing on the Ouya box. Playcast, if you aren't familiar, is a cloud gaming service that licenses and offers console-level games, from shooters to action, sports, and more.

On May 1, 1964, Professor John Kemeny ran the first BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) program from a timesharing terminal at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire. Created by Kemeny and Professor Thomas Kurtz, BASIC was designed to make it easier for students to use computers.

BASIC enjoyed huge popularity in the mid-late 1970s and 1980s, and anyone over a certain age will likely have learned to program on a microcomputer using it. I certainly did. My first computer was a ZX81 from Sinclair Research. It’s a name people in the UK will recognize instantly but will mean nothing to most outside of the British Isles (it was released -- in a slightly modified form -- as the Timex Sinclair 1000 in the United States). To use it, you had to master Sinclair BASIC and that was my first experience with what initially seemed like an alien language.

For far too long, enterprise software has lagged behind its consumer counterparts.

When compared to the progress in digital media and consumer software, some of the applications used to power the world’s biggest companies look as if they are stuck in 1990. Yet this is no longer the case thanks to the growth in expectations from business users who spend hours a day on high end devices and mobile apps.

As networks become larger, faster and more complex, they become harder to monitor. This presents a security risk as it's more difficult to capture behavior for incident analysis and to spot suspicious behavior.

Network specialist Emulex has released the results of a survey which looks at the impact of growing networks on visibility and monitoring, network and application performance, security, and compliance.

Movie Moments and Windows Reading List are two of Microsoft's apps for Windows 8.1. The former is part of the software giant's optional creative suite while the latter is the read-it-later tool bundled with the tiled operating system.

Following the introduction of shared apps, Microsoft is now taking advantage of this feature to make Movie Moments and Reading List available to Windows Phone 8.1 users as well. For those who are not familiar with shared apps, the feature allows developers to make their titles available across both app stores, much like Android and iOS developers can. It is effectively meant to increase the likelihood of having Windows Phone apps also available on Windows 8.1 and vice-versa.

I say "shocker", but with all the cards stacked in its favor -- XP users forced to look for a new OS, Windows 7 being pretty hard to get hold of, and an update designed to make Windows 8.1 more appealing to keyboard and mouse users -- if Windows 8.1 hadn’t grown market share in April then it would have been pretty much game over for the tiled OS.

Even with all that in its favor, according to NetMarketShare’s monthly Desktop OS sampling, Windows 8.x still had some stiff competition from Windows 7 which also packed on market share, taking the shine off the new OS’s achievements.

Softland has released doPDF 8.0, a major new release of its free PDF printer driver that allows Windows users to output any document in PDF format for sharing or viewing.

Version 8.0 adds the NovaPDF plug-in for converting Microsoft Office documents from within Office with one click. It also comes with new predefined forms to take the total number supported to over 80.

Keyboards and mice definitely take abuse. I have witnessed some horrific keyboard conditions -- full of crumbs, dust and lord-knows-what. Not to mention, have you looked in the seams of your mouse lately? There may be a build-up of grime -- yuck! Gamers in particular are known to severely beat the crap out of their input devices when playing a stressful game. Even if it isn't intentional, as a game of Quake 4 heats up, people are known to smash the keys on the keyboard and the buttons on their mouse.

If gamers are known to beat the crap out of their input devices when stressed, what is to say we all don't? In other words, whether writing a paper or editing a spreadsheet under a deadline, maybe the amount of pressure that the person uses can detect stress. Well, Microsoft researcher Mary Czerwinski and her team decided to prove that theory through experimentation. The findings are eye-opening.

One of the things I like best about Windows 8.1 is the Smart Search feature. Powered by Bing, it lets you look for anything -- a program or app installed on your computer, a file stored on your hard drive or in the cloud, or a website. You open up the Start or Apps screen, and just start typing (or you can use the new Search button which was introduced with Windows 8.1 Update) and then choose the relevant result.

I have no complaints about it (although I still use Google for most of my web searches), but today Microsoft is making the Smart Search feature a whole lot more powerful with natural language understanding so you can search for something, even if you’re not sure exactly what it is you’re looking for.