On this site we often take a look at how the Internet and related technologies have changed our world and how we live our lives.

It's been a long time since I had to endure the process of "pounding the pavement" to look for a job, but it's a task many people face every day. Back in the olden days, finding a new job meant typing, retyping and re-retyping your résumé until it was perfect, mailing it out in response to ads and other leads, making lots of phone calls to your contacts within your field of expertise, and hitting the streets for interviews.

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Microsoft’s thirst to put Windows on as many devices as is humanly possible is finally starting to bear the smallest fruit possible with growth of half a percentage point expected in 2015.

Gartner’s figures on the worldwide operating system market released yesterday showed that Windows owned 13.9 percent of the OS sector in 2013, a number that will drop to 13.7 percent this year before rebounding to 14.4 percent in 2015 -- a rise in two years of 0.5 percent.

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According to a report from Endeavour Partners, "more than half of U.S. consumers who have owned a modern activity tracker no longer use it and a third stopped using the device within six months of receiving it". This trend is symptomatic of a larger problem -- the job that a wearable device does is still unclear to most consumers. This is the crux of the problem I see with wearables, as they exist today.

Maybe we can look to the original wearable device, the watch, for some insight. The watch became popular with consumers because it met a ubiquitous need. The job of the watch was to give instant access to information (time), which users could then put in context (answer to the question "so what?") with their schedule, travel, etc. Consider this example:

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As a teenager, I wasted much of my life and loved every minute of it. Rather than do anything productive, I would vegetate in front of the TV watching movies like Smokey and the Bandit on WPIX. The concept of actually learning something outside of school was foreign -- who wants to learn during their free time? In my defense though, the 90's didn't offer much outside of TV and AOL chat rooms.

Nowadays however, teens are afforded some very cool opportunities, including Google's Code-In. If you aren't familiar, it is a program for teens aged 13-17 to both learn about and participate in open source technologies. Today, Google announces that it has improved KDE with the help of some of these teens.

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Keeping tabs of things across multiple platforms generally falls into two camps -- you are either an Evernote fan, or a OneNote user. One thing the former has excelled at is clipping content from the web and allowing the user to easily save it to a notebook. Now OneNote takes a step forward in this arena, adding new features to keep up with its rival.

The feature works a bit differently than WebClipper, but that isn't a bad thing. Users can send an email to me@OneNote.com and it will automatically clip the web content, as well as the contents of the email message.

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Want to get more out of your rooted Android device? Looking for unique features and expanded functionality? Unhappy with the CyanogenMod team selling their collective souls to the VC devil?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, you owe it to yourself to check out OmniROM. Billed as the "anti-CyanogenMod", OmniROM is the result of efforts by several former CyanogenMod team members to create a new custom Android ROM, one that adheres to the CM team’s original vision of an open-source alternative to Google’s stock OS.

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When it comes to purchasing new software, many organizations do so to increase efficiency, save time, and reduce costs. This is particularly true of nonprofits, which often have limited staff and busy schedules.

Enter "free" software: on its surface, a simple, cost-effective solution. However, free software isn’t always free, and nonprofit executives often learn this the hard way: after incurring costs from implementation, consultants, ancillary features, support, and ongoing maintenance. These costs add up to more than a solution with an upfront cost but long-term savings. Here are pitfalls to avoid and tips to help you select something that will be a better fit for you, your nonprofit, and your budget over the long haul.

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Buying and trading goods used to be so easy. If I needed a rake and my neighbor needed a hoe, we could simply swap. If I wanted to sell something, I would take out a classified ad in a local newspaper, like the Penny Saver. Hell, I bought my first car that way -- loved that thing.

Nowadays, buying and selling is much more complicated -- especially electronics. You can buy something from eBay or Craigslist only to find out that it doesn't work or is stolen. Smartphones and tablets can be risky to sell, because you have to remember to wipe your data before giving it to the other party. If you forget, the buyer can get your personal information and private photos. Forget to delete that sexy selfie that you took? Some weirdo from eBay now has it and will spread it around the net. Today, Avast announces that as a test it purchased 20 used and supposedly wiped phones from the net. The personal data recovered is shocking.

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Microsoft has had a hard job convincing people of the merits of the Windows Modern UI in Windows 8, so any help it can get to make the Start screen in particular more useful has got to be a good thing. With that in mind, it can only applaud Russian software developer Greatis Software.

The folk at Greatis are the brains behind a collection of gadgets and tools for making the Start Screen that bit more useful. Step forward, Start Screen Unlimited Lite 2.0.

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Where would we be without innovation? In the dark most probably. It's what drives the commercial world forward, in particular the "disruptive technologies" that radically change the way that the world operates.

Marketing specialist Pulp-PR has put together an infographic from a number of data sources showing the effect these technologies have and highlighting what it thinks are the currently most innovative tech companies.

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PopcornTime has been in and out of the news. The program uses BitTorrent to grab movies and TVs shows and allows you to stream them right away. The service was initially taken down, but has found a way to come back, and claims those problems are in the past, stating "This PopcornTime service will never be taken down".

Now, in an even bolder move, the service has announced support for Chromecast, Google's tiny TV dongle. "This is the alpha version, so handle with care and let us know what works, what doesn’t, and if you do find something that’s not working properly (hopefully not!!) let us know in our forum and be as specific as possible (also tell us which Windows version you’re running, etc.)", the service announces.

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Historically, Linux and gaming were like oil and water -- it did not mix. For the most part, this was just accepted as a fact of life. Quite frankly, this was OK as users were more interested in maintaining their box and chatting with other Linux users anyway. However, as time went by, jealousy of DOS, and then ultimately Windows, definitely grew as more and more amazing games were released for Microsoft's operating system. Even Linus Torvalds himself dual-booted Linux and DOS to play Prince of Persia.

Gaming is no longer an optional aspect of an operating system -- it is now a necessity. Luckily, Linux has been making huge strides in this regard, particularly thanks to Steam. Today, SparkyLinux 3.4 "Game Over" becomes available and it is very intriguing -- a Linux-based desktop operating system with a focus on gaming.

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Eric Ligman, Microsoft Senior Sales Excellence Manager, has released a whole new batch of free ebooks, covering topics such as Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows 7, Office 2013 and Office 365, Azure, Lync 2013, and SQL Server. There are ebooks and resource guides for all things Microsoft.

For the past few years, Ligman has been writing posts in which he has given away almost 150 free Microsoft ebooks, and now he has another 130 more titles available to download for free, in addition to all the ones previously offered. Yes, that's right -- there are now close to 300 titles available.

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We're all familiar with software licenses. It's the bit you ignore when installing a new program, right? But what's less understood is the difficulty they cause for businesses. New research by IDC sponsored by Flexera looks at the latest trends in software licensing, virtualization and the compliance issues involved.

The report points out that the software license supply chain is one of the most opaque, difficult to understand and complex to manage. As a result, the relationship between application producer and customer has often suffered in the past.

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I have been waiting for BBM to make its triumphal arrival in Windows Phone Store for quite a while now. Its launch was revealed in February. Android and iPhone users are luckier, as the messaging app already launched on those platforms in the fall of 2013. But it now looks like Windows Phone users might soon also be able to join the party, and exchange PINs.

BlackBerry has published the BBM app for Windows Phone, but sadly for interested users it is not yet available for everyone to download, as it now undergoes private testing. That means only a select few can install it. Still, some progress is better than no progress at all, especially for those rocking a smartphone running the tiled operating system.

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