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Moonchild Productions has released Pale Moon 15.4 and Pale Moon x64 15.4 for Windows, a maintenance and security release for its Firefox variant. As the version number implies, Pale Moon 15.4 is based on the Gecko 15 engine used in Firefox 15, with the developer openly making no attempt to keep up with Mozilla’s six-week development cycle in favour of polishing and securing the older browser engine.

Version 15.4 adds no new features, but includes a number of security updates and bug fixes that make Pale Moon as secure as the latest version of Firefox, currently at 18.0.

Later this month, I plan to jump cold feet into the next computing era by making a tablet my primary PC. I was all primed to start last year, but improved Google Chromebooks derailed the experiment. New year is here and good time for a computing resolution. Already, I made major computing platform shift in 2012 -- ARM, Android and Chrome OS. I'll write about the journey, which surely will tumultuous, at least to start.

I won't go alone. Yesterday morning, my wife asked about trading up to a larger tablet (she used the Nexus 7 I bought her in July). The request was totally unexpected. I added her as another user to my Nexus 10 and let her play around. She likes! She likes! So I ordered her the larger tablet, planning to sell the older one (and some other gear, to cover cost). The idea: We would together go tablet as main devices, with Chromebook as backup (hey, sometimes you need Flash, for example). We will share my Nexus 7, which has HSPA+ radio, to carry around when out and about (me sitting in the man chair while the women shop; she while, say, waiting for her dad at the doctor's office). But both of us will primarily use our own Nexus 10s.

I suspect Microsoft may keep track of the number of people who use a Start button/menu replacement app in Windows 8, but it is not in the company's interest to say so -- both because a large number would reflect badly on the decision to remove the feature and because the company did a lot of, ah, "research" to determine the feature was not necessary. Oh, and the whole privacy thing as well.

Pokki, which is perhaps the market leader in this new genre of Start-menu-adding apps released a bit of information today: "1.5 million Pokki downloads on the new OS itself and users opening the Pokki Menu an average of 10 times a day".

The words "free" and "50GB of cloud storage" don't often come together in the same sentence, so when the company announced the mind-boggling offer there was only one question on my mind: "When's it coming to Android?" Well, good things come to those who wait! After an almost five-month hiatus, MediaFire arrived on green droid land.

So what's it like? Well, straight off the bat MediaFire for Android "features" a major flaw -- users cannot sign up for the cloud storage service using the app. That's an inconvenience seeing as, for instance, Box or Dropbox do sport the basic functionality. That said, the app does have some interesting features starting with the camera options.

I really should heed my own advice. Yesterday I warned you that all preview versions of Windows 8 would expire. You had two choices -- upgrade to gold code or deal with a computer that reboots every two hours. Hopefully you went with the former, but I chose the latter with a desktop PC that I rarely use. I had the nerve to say to myself that "I will get it tomorrow".

Well, I did get around to it today. I had purchased the license -- two months ago in fact, but I just did not get around to doing anything with it. Well, guess what? Microsoft punished he who procrastinates.

In late November, Tami Reller, Windows and Windows Live Division chief marketing officer, revealed that Microsoft was planning to launch the Surface Pro tablet "in January" 2013. However, seeing as the second half of the month is already underway, that doesn't give the tech giant long to get its product out there.

Fortunately prospective purchasers will be pleased to know they won't have long to wait now. Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft Surface, tweeted yesterday that he was on his "way to the factory to check out Surface Pro", and that the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation will release the Windows 8 Pro tablet "in the coming weeks". Presumably that could mean either a late January or early February launch.

When I need to make a payment or send money to someone, I use a bank app on my smartphone. It’s quick and easy, and I can check my balance beforehand to make sure I’ve got enough cash in my account. The app does require me to know the other person’s bank details though, and so isn’t particularly handy for making swift payments to just anyone.

Fortunately the Payments Council is working on a project that will make it possible for anyone living in the UK to send secure payments via text message. You won’t need to worry about account numbers or sort codes -- all you’ll need is the recipient’s mobile number.

First in a series. Has Apple peaked? Yes and no. I think the company still struggles somewhat to find its path following the death of former CEO Steve Jobs. But there’s still plenty happening and room for growth in Cupertino. So let’s start a discussion about what’s really going on there. I thought this might be possible in a single column, but looking down I see that’s impossible, so expect a second forward-looking Apple column.

The catalyst for this particular column is word coming over the weekend from the Wall $treet Journal that Apple is cutting back component orders for the iPhone 5, signaling lower sales than expected. I’m not saying this story is wrong but I don’t completely buy it for a couple reasons.

There’s no doubt that USB keys are compact, portable and a very convenient way to transfer files and documents. Unfortunately, they’re almost as good as transferring malware, and allowing snoopers to steal information, which is why you might want to control them with a copy of Phrozen Safe USB.

After a simple installation and a reboot, launching the program will add an icon to your system tray. By default this will leave USB devices working just as they did, but right-click the icon and you can choose a couple of alternative settings: “USB Mode Read Only” (drives show up in Explorer, but you can’t write to them), and “USB Mode Disabled” (USB storage devices no longer appear in Explorer at all).

This week, my colleague Joe Wilcox wrote about the popular catch-phrase these days -- the "post-PC era". The only problem: this concept is wrong. Yes, he included lots of analyst information, fancy numbers and predictions, but none of it is realistic to the vast majority of computing users.

Yes, tablets are popular. There is no denying that. The iPad, despite not being the first tablet, brought the concept into the real world. Amazon and Google made the devices affordable. Sure, tablets make a great solution for checking email, weather and answering a question about that movie or show on your TV -- the one that occurs while sitting on your sofa.

I'm not an investor or financial analyst. But I do have a measure of commonsense. Lots of people are asking about Apple's falling stock price and why it is. You don't need a MBA or ponder price-earnings ratios to, by commonsense, see what's happening. Apple is undergoing a long-overdue course correction. It's the new normal, baby, get used to it.

Analysts making wild-eyed predictions just months ago about $1,000 a share or bloggers banging keyboards about $1 billion market capitalization are nutty fruitcakes. Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is gone, so they made their own Kool-Aid and spiked it. They're the only thing getting high here. Apple is laid low.

ChangeWave has new data out today showing an expected, but dramatic, decline in iPhone buying intentions over the next 90 days and unexpected jump for Samsung smartphones -- two models particularly: Galaxy S III and Note II. One-half of US consumers say they'll buy Apple's handset, but that's down from 71 percent three months earlier. Interest in the South Korean manufacturer's devices surged to 21 percent from 13 percent during the same time frame.

"Consumer buying intent for Samsung smartphones has been extraordinary to start the year", Paul Carton, ChangeWave's vice president of research, says. "Considering the Galaxy S III has been out for several months we'd normally expect a slowdown by now, but it’s still red hot. We’re also seeing strong interest in Samsung’s large-screen phone -- the Galaxy Note II. Super-sized smartphones are taking the industry by storm in 2013". Among those planning to buy a Samsung smartphone, 69 percent say Galaxy S3 and 23 percent Note II.

Who offers the best antivirus protection? It’s not an easy question to answer, but independent testing labs AV-TEST and AV-Comparatives have just released their latest results and reports, and they make very interesting reading.

AV-TEST places Bitdefender Internet Security 2013 in first place, for instance, with 5/6 for usability, 5.5/6 for repair and an excellent 6/6 for protection. But F-Secure Internet Security 2013 and Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 2013 also rate 6/6 for protection, while Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 and Norton Internet Security 2013 rating well all round.

Usually when users wish to transfer apps with data between Android devices, a fairly cumbersome process is involved. There's an easier way though. Koushik Dutta, the developer behind popular modding tools such as ClockworkMod and ROM Manager, unveiled Carbon, an app that can get the job done by itself after touching a few buttons.

But who actually needs it? While Carbon may present a limited appeal to most Android users, it actually makes sense for those running apps grabbed from third-party sources such as Interweb forums, a common occurrence for modders, beta apps that are unavailable to download from the Play store (a good example is the Dropbox preview build) or for users that simply wish to have the same app data across several devices. Think of game saves and you get the picture.

With the growth of the mobile market in the form of smartphones and tablets, the ability to print from anywhere has become increasingly important. In this new generation of computing a whole new genre of software has been born, giving users the ability to print while on the go. My favorite has been Breezy, but HP is making big strides in the market as well with its ePrint service, which allows users to send any document or photo to a printer in the home or to other locations where they can stop and grab the printout while on the road.

Today the company announced the addition of 8,000 Walgreens locations to its service, bringing the total number of places available to more than 30,000.