How much do you hate ads? How much do ads piss you off? Well prepare to turn into an even bigger ball of hate-filled pissed-off-ness when you hear about Facebook's latest ventures in advertising. Few people would argue against the suggestion that Facebook has all but given up any pretence of being a social network and has become little more than a huge cog in a massive advertising machine. Claims have been made that ads are being made more relevant to users, but the truth of the matter is that users are being made more relevant to advertisers. And Facebook now has a whole new way to follow you around the web to make sure you are delivered even more better-targeted ads.

Facebook has been criticized for forcing users to reveal their real names -- information which is as valuable to advertisers as it is anything to do with security -- and there have long been concerns about privacy settings on the site. Users of Facebook may complain that their newsfeeds are cluttered with news and posts at the wrong time, but one of the biggest issues people have with the site is with ad delivery. Last week we learned that Facebook was on the verge of revealing something "more powerful than what Google can currently do" in terms of user tracking. Facebook has now launched Atlas, an ad platform that can track users as they move from desktop to mobile devices -- and it's sure to raise plenty of privacy hackles.

Google is trying to grow its budding operating system platform, continually updating and enhancing features. Customers can now work in certain environments offline, for instance. But what lacked was some of the core features of rivals Windows and OS X. However, that slowly changes as well.

Photo editing, for instance, was one feature that, while not absent, certainly wasn't top of the line. Until now you had to rely on an app such as Pixlr, which many Chromebook customers use. But Google today announces that Photoshop is arriving, though not (at least yet) offline.

Microsoft Stores are surprisingly cool places; much better than Apple's iconic stores. Sure, the fruit-logo company's store is more famous, plus full of hipsters and other rather trendy folks, but the Microsoft Store tends to be more useful and better designed. From my observations, the Apple Store in the mall is a place teens and husbands go to play with stuff as their moms or wives shop in lady-stores, while actual shoppers go to Microsoft.

Surprisingly, a full-fledged Microsoft Store has been absent from Manhattan. While there are many big cities in the world, none are trendier or more significant than New York. Finally, the company is delivering a store to New Yorkers on Fifth Avenue; however, it isn't just any store, but the flagship store.

While we all await the arrival of the next Nexus from Google -- and the wait isn't likely to be very long now -- other low cost Android tablets are trying to attract both our attention and our cash. Asus has a good track record in this respect. Lest we forget, Asus was in fact Google's partner for the last Nexus tablet, though it looks like Google may be ringing the changes in terms of a hardware partner this time round.

Anyhow, what we have here is the MeMO Pad 8, the latest in a line of smaller format, lower cost tablets from Asus that are designed to cater to our desire for a larger than phablet screen that's still potentially pocket-friendly in size and wallet-friendly in price. The MeMO Pad 8 will set you back around £160.

When the first iPhone went on sale in June 2007 expert opinion was very much of the view that it wouldn't have a significant impact. Steve Wildstrom of Business Week for example said, "The iPhone will never be a threat to the BlackBerry".

Proving that experts can be very wrong, the iPhone has of course gone from strength to strength and Carphone Warehouse in Ireland has produced a fascinating infographic charting its evolution up to the latest version.

Your browser's misbehaving? It's a common problem, and you've probably got your own quick fixes: delete the cache, scan for malware, remove the last add-in you installed, whatever it might be.

Now Google is offering a little extra assistance with Chrome Software Removal Tool (CSRT), a Windows beta which scans for programs known to cause problems with Google Chrome and offers to remove them.

Ever felt frustrated by CCleaner’s relative limited support for third-party apps? Did you know you can -- with a lot of care -- add your own programs to its cleaning database? Does that sound a bit scary? No matter, you can add support for hundreds more programs with no fuss using a free tool called CCEnhancer 4.1.

The tool lets you easily augment the CCleaner information file with 1,000 other program options, and with the release of version 4.1, the tool makes it easier for you to add your own program entries from within CCEnhancer itself.

Apple's recently released iPhone 6 is susceptible to the same fingerprint forging attack as the iPhone 5s, according to the latest security research.

Mark Rogers, principal security researcher for mobile security firm Lookout, used techniques which are well-known to police officials and prototypers to access the device.

The new iPhone, as every smartphone fan knows by now, is not in fact one phone, but two. And unlike last time Apple launched two handsets at once, this time you don't have to choose between a cut down version (the iPhone 5c) or a full-fat version (the iPhone 5s).

This time, while there are some differences between the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, apart from screen size they are subtle ones, and your choice is primarily about size -- do you want a 4.7-inch screen or a 5.5-inch one? This review is of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, kindly provided by Three -- our review of the iPhone 6 Plus will follow.

Most of us have hopefully managed to get off the sinking ship that was Windows XP. As much of a recent memory as that has become, a new end of life is rearing its head, and it's approaching fervently for those who haven't started planning for it. Microsoft's Windows Server 2003, a solid server operating system that's now about eleven and a half years old, is heading for complete extinction in just under 300 days. Microsoft has a fashionable countdown timer already ticking.

Seeing as we just finished our second server migration in a single week (a personal record so far), sharing some of the finer aspects of how we are streamlining these transitions seems like a timely fit. This braindump of sorts is a collection of best practices that we are routinely following for our own customers, and they seem to be serving us well so far.

Apple has admitted that most OS X users have nothing to be concerned about when it comes to the bug that has been dubbed "worse than Heartbleed".

In a statement the firm admitted that it is already working on a software update for advanced UNIX users that repairs the major exploit that can be used by hackers to gain access to connected devices by inserting malicious code into the "Bash" command shell in OS X and Linux.

Right now, depending who you speak with, there is either a shortage or a glut of IT professionals in the USA. Those who maintain there is a shortage tend to say it can only be eliminated by immigration reform allowing more H1-B visas and green cards. Those who see a glut point to high IT unemployment figures and what looks like pervasive age discrimination. If both views are possible -- and I am beginning to see how they could be -- we can start by blaming the Human Resources (HR) departments at big and even medium-sized companies.

HR does the hiring and firing or at least handles the paperwork for hiring and firing. HR hires headhunters to find IT talent or advertises and finds that talent itself. If you are an IT professional in a company of almost any size that has an HR department, go down there sometime and ask about their professional qualifications. What made them qualified to hire you?

A few weeks back, I finally had a really good chance at stress testing our company's still-fresh hosted Lync solution from CallTower. Merging calls. Transferring calls. Starting ad-hoc conference calls with clients. All the while IM'ing my internal staff and fellow clients, and checking voicemails that were coming through as MP3s in my email along with associated text transcriptions.

If you think I was sitting at the comfort of my desk with the power of a desk phone at my side, you guessed wrong. I was nearly 900 miles away from our home base in Park Ridge, out in the beautiful city of Stamford, CT helping clean up a messy VoIP rollout for a customer who needed some dire help.

EditShare has announced the release of Lightworks 12, its powerful non-linear video editor for Windows, Linux, and -- at last -- Mac.

The hugely extended Content Manager is a highlight. Everything is immediately accessible, there’s easier searching and filtering to help you find what you need, you can even drag and drop files directly into open bins as required.

This week we should finally be able to get our hands on Windows 9 code direct from Microsoft. There are only a couple of days to go until the Technical Preview is officially unveiled at an event in San Francisco, and excitement has been mounting. Slightly ahead of schedule, a page has appeared on the Microsoft website that includes a download link to the 32- and 64-bit versions of the Windows Technical Preview for Enterprise. Intriguingly, the page refers to a version of Windows named Windows TH, but it's not clear that this is actually the name that will be used.

Before you get too excited about grabbing the latest Windows bits, it seems that the page is just a placeholder for now. The download button currently links to a non-updated version of the TechNet Evaluation Center, but a link to the download page that will be used was live briefly. It revealed that the US version of the Technical Preview weighs in at 3.16 GB and 4.10 GB. We've already got a pretty good idea of what to expect from the preview as there have been numerous build and screenshot leaks over recent weeks.