I’ve met and/or spent time with some famous icons over the years -- including drinking beer with the Sex Pistols in LA -- but oddly I’m most pleased to have met Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris, and Ernő Rubik, the man who invented the Rubik’s Cube (I didn’t meet them both at the same time, sadly -- that really would be a story).

Rubik’s most famous invention is forty years old today, and as clever and as frustratingly difficult to master as ever. When I was a kid, the only way I could crack it was by actually cracking it open. Popping the corners out, dismantling the cube and then reassembling it. Or cheating, as some people might say.

You may remember the OnePlus One as one of the most hyped smartphones of the year thus far. That is for two big reasons: first, it ships with top-of-the-line specifications and, second, the One manages to do that at a price lower than what Google asks for its impressive Nexus 5. (The fact that it looks quite nice does not hurt either.)

On top of that, OnePlus has also employed a clever trick to drum up people's interest in its first smartphone before the official launch. The One will follow a different path to availability, as the company will only allow those who have received an invite to buy it. After all, the exclusive launch adds to the appeal, does it not?

If you’re still missing the Start Menu in Windows 8 -- or even the more desktop-friendly 8.1 -- then there are plenty of ways to bring it back (Classic Shell is probably our favorite).

It’s not immediately obvious why we need yet another Start Menu alternative, then. But Spencer (yes, that really is its name) does have one or two differences which help it stand out from the crowd.

As you probably noticed, earlier this week Microsoft announced that the Xbox One would be made available without Kinect, instead of forcing the motion sensor on consumers as a compulsory part of the Xbox package. This was a move analysts predicted would happen next year, but it's happening now.

So yes, cue much cheering and cries of "finally" and general applause for a victory for consumer choice. And yes, this is a good thing in terms of consumer choice -- no one would doubt that. But amidst all the buzz, fireworks and party poppers going off, many folks seem to have overlooked the fact that there are downsides to this move. And it's these negative aspects I'm going to look at here.

If you believe the rumors -- and I rarely do, unsubstantiated -- Google+ and Nexus are over. Gossipers claim the social network will lose identity and prominence, while the Nexus 6 smartphone is no more than dust in the wind. Who is writing the script here? George R. R. Martin? Because the Google killing-spree has a "Game of Thrones" (aka Song of Ice and Fire) feel to it -- you don't know which product will be killed next. For sure, the death count is mighty since Larry Page's return as CEO three years ago.

But Google will make a huge mistake if it backs off Plus, or worse, puts Nexus to the sword. These assets' value is immeasurable. Enthusiasts are any company's best marketers, and these products command large and vocal fan bases. Enthusiasts are crucial to Google gaining and maintaining brand charm, particularly as government overlords answer competitor complaints: "Antitrust! Antitrust!" Fans aren't just good marketers, they are foot soldiers rallying against invaders, like European or U.S. trustbusters.

This upcoming Tuesday, Microsoft is holding a Surface press event and yours truly will be attending. While nothing has been confirmed, many are speculating that we will finally see a "Surface Mini" -- a smaller Windows tablet bearing Surface branding.

That is exciting on its own, yet further rumors and speculation are predicting a Surface Pro 3 to be unveiled. Again, this is not confirmed -- purely chatter at this point. Still, as a Surface fan, a third version of Microsoft's Pro tablet has me giddy. Truth be told, I have been daydreaming about what the Surface Pro 3 could be. Here are my 5 wishes for it -- Microsoft, you'd better be reading!

Cloud backup provider Dropbox has announced the final release of Dropbox 2.8, its latest major update for Windows, Linux and Mac.

The new release adds Windows and OS X auto sign-in support for easier installation. As long as you're logged into Dropbox already, the installer won’t ask for your credentials again. (This doesn’t work if you’re using two-step verification, or a Dropbox for Business account that uses single sign-on.)

While Apple and Google are fighting a FUD war for the hearts and minds of K-12 campuses, there's one area of education that neither has been able to penetrate with success: higher ed. Specifically, I'm referring to the conglomerate of colleges and universities across the US (and likely abroad).

That's because for all their love in the media, tablets have yet to prove their weight when it comes to deep research and content manipulation in the classroom. Real student work comes in the form of content creation, not consumption -- an area Google and Apple are endlessly infatuated with.

Migrating to a new PC can be a tedious, time-consuming business. There will be applications to reinstall, serial numbers to find, data to move, and that’s before you start reconfiguring everything to try and restore your old settings.

Alternatively, you could just use EaseUS Todo PCTrans to handle at least some of the work for you.

Music services these days are a dime a dozen. New ones pop up all the time, and some make it, while others fail. It's a tough business, given the amount of choices available to customers. Now we learn of one more that failed to find the niche it needed to be a successful business.

Ex.fm has announced it will close up shop on May 19th. This didn't come as a major surprise -- the company had given warning signs previously, but managed to keep things afloat a few additional months. However, now a blog post from the company tells the tale.

Powerful open source screenshot tool ShareX has been updated to version 9.0 with some significant changes and additions.

Top of the list is new support for screen recording with audio. This makes use of FFmpeg to do the hard work, with ShareX downloading the program if you don’t have it already.

The past week was one dominated by privacy and security related stories. A court ruling in Oracle's favor means that the company is able to claim copyright protection for APIs subsequently used by Google in Android. The long term effects of the ruling are yet to be understood, but they could certainly be far-reaching. Privacy hit the headlines again as SanDisk works on a self-encrypting SSD, and Google was told that users can request that information about them be removed from search results -- of course it didn't take long for the requests to start rolling in.

New research shows that there has been an increase in online suspicion, indicated by a huge increase in the levels of encryption used. The UK government approved the use of Samsung KNOX devices which could help to allay fears about BYOD. Google announced GAME -- Google Apps Message Encryption -- to provide end-to-end encryption for email outside of the Gmail ecosystem.

Google's Gmail is a formidable email service, offering many features. Sadly, the UI is a bit poor and the overall feeling is amateurish. Many true professionals access email using the gold standard -- Outlook. While Microsoft's email software sometimes feels a bit bloated, that is probably because it is chock-full of useful things. Other than email, it is a dream for calendars, task-tracking and overall life organization.

With that said, whether I am on Windows or Mac, I always am sure to install Office so I can setup my email accounts with Outlook -- including Gmail. Unfortunately, by using Outlook rather than the Gmail web interface, I lose out on some goodies, such as starting a Hangout. Well, today this changes, as Google announces Hangouts and Outlook are hanging out with each other.

Images2PDF is a simple tool for saving your chosen digital images to a PDF file. Yes, you’re right, there are plenty of ways to do this already, but the program has one or two touches which help it stand out from the crowd.

Images2PDF is a lightweight 1.66MB download, for instance, and there really isn’t anything more (this isn’t one of those tools which comes bundled with Ghostscript). It’s adware-free, too, always a plus with this type of application.

Adobe Creative Cloud went down for 24 hours earlier, which means that creative brains around the world were desperately struggling to complete jobs that require the comprehensive suite of services.

The good news is that there are plenty of free alternatives professionals can use to get by and below is an extensive rundown of each product.