Second in a series. "My name is MB and I'm an addict" is what I would say at the first Early Adopters Anonymous meeting.

I'm driven by an addiction to try a product as soon as possible, at the earliest point in its life cycle and I can (silently) admit to it being a compulsive behavior. It's not that I don't enjoy it, but I feel that's what I should do with every new product that I can get my geeky hands on. Yes, that's the second confession, and I'm fairly certain it will not be the last either.

First in a series. I feel dirty. As I crawl my way up to my desk this morning, I get the sense that I'm somehow less than fresh. After all, I've just spent several days living on the very edge of Android's outer darkness, a place where evil lurks and "good" users know not to tread.

I'm speaking, of course, of the seedy underworld of Android device rooting, a subculture so far removed from the mainstream of computing that its denizens are hardly recognizable. It's a world that has always fascinated me. But as an outsider subject to the rules of "civilized" society, I could never fully understand the allure -- dare I say, the addiction -- that binds so many to this dark place.

Uninstalling an application doesn’t seem like it should be such a difficult task: make a note of what you add to a PC during installation, then remove it all when you’re asked, right?

In reality, though, many installers leave assorted files, folders and Registry keys behind to clutter your hard drive and slow your system down. But grab a copy of Mirekusoft Install Monitor and you’ll be able to quickly identify these leftovers, and clean up them all with a click.

C Spire Wireless, the still relatively new data-centric brand for regional wireless carrier Cellular South on Friday unveiled the latest version of its exclusive "Scout" content recommendation application for C Spire subscribers. This version of Scout expands beyond simple app recommendations, and includes movie, book and music recommendations through various stores like iTunes and Amazon.

The user provides information about himself, and Scout 3.0 then recommends content which the user can then give a thumbs up or thumbs down rating to. It's not unlike the method of content recommendation used by music service Pandora. There is an additional level of social recommendation (a la Yelp) in the "Star Users" class in the app. Here, profiles of users can be viewed, as well as all the apps they have installed and their reviews of different content.

The Apple Store staffing scandal surprises me -- if it can be called that. Rumored layoffs, hours cutbacks and hiring freezes led to an immediate response from Apple, that seemingly puts new retail chief John Browett in a tight spot. As a former Apple customer and someone who still frequents the stores for reporting purposes, I can see why Browett would want to make changes. The ratio of employees to customers is embarrassing. There's kill and way overkill. What's that saying about having too much of a good thing?

The company had reportedly started laying off employees in the United Kingdom, which didn't strike me as odd with the Olympics ending and the reasonable scenario of releasing temporary employees added for the event. Stories showed up in my RSS feeds earlier in the week. I ignored them, as I do most Apple rumors. But on Wednesday, I saw Gary Allen's analysis of Apple Store profit goals behind the rumored staffing changes, which made much more sense of them. Allen has an excellent track record reporting about Apple Store. Perhaps Apple thought so, too. Official response came yesterday.

Social gaming just used to be about having fun, but now there’s a real-money element creeping in. First Gamesys launched a Facebook app that allowed UK residents aged 18 and over to play for real cash prizes while interacting with friends, and now Big Fish Games is getting in on the act with Big Fish Casino for iOS devices. The game is a relaunched and rebranded version of Card Ace: Casino, from recently acquired Self Aware Studios, that offers new games and additional social features, and will soon also allow UK users to play slots for real money.

If the thought of wagering your earnings on spinning reels doesn’t do it for you, you might be more interested to hear that the real-money feature, powered by UK-licensed online gaming company Betable, will also be available in blackjack, roulette and video poker in the coming months.

A month ago today I asked: "Will you buy Windows 8?" About 1,500 of you answered the poll and offered more in comments -- to the story and others that followed. Now that Windows 8 is released to manufacturing and available to developers and to enterprises, it's good time to review your answers.

About 45 percent of respondents plan to buy Windows 8 as soon as it's available -- more consumers (25.06 percent) than business users (19.55 percent). All total, 55.71 percent of you plan on buying Windows 8 within six months of availability (from August for businesses and October for consumers). Given our select audience, I don't expect adoption to be that high that fast for the broader market. However, considering that analyst data -- from Net Applications, among others -- puts XP usage higher than any other Windows version, there is potentially huge pent-up demand for Win8. Then there is something different -- the new user interface formally known as Metro. (Say, what's its name this week?)

Visit YouTube in your browser and it’s easy enough to search for and play any videos you like. Downloading individual clips and using them offline is a little more difficult, though -- unless you get help from a third-party tool like YouTube Mate.

Launch the program and it’ll immediately begin monitoring your clipboard for YouTube URLs. If you find a video you’d like to save, just copy the address to the clipboard, and YouTube Mate will pop up a Download dialog. Click OK, choose the video format and resolution you’d like to save (there’s full HD support here) and watch as YouTube Mate downloads and saves it for you.

Windows 8 is finally finished, and we now know it’ll be available from October 26. If you really need to see what it can do right now, though, Microsoft have just released an evaluation edition of Windows 8 Enterprise that can download and try for free.

And that means you’ll get access to several more corporate features which aren’t available in the regular or Professional Windows 8 editions. Like Windows To Go, for instance, which allows the operating system to boot and run from USB drives.

For Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III users feeling locked in, there's freedom ahead. Thanks to the effort of an "African-Canadian Sock Monkey" bootloader, the S3 can now be unlocked. Modding fans get a green light to… mod.

Stock ROMs can be replaced with modded Android versions, making custom Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean ROMs a possibility on the Galaxy S III. Samsung has yet to release an upgrade to Jelly Bean from the stock version installed, Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, but it's likely that the upgrade is in the pipeline by now. If you're not a big fan of waiting for official upgrades, the modding community already has a solution for the International Samsung Galaxy S III, through a CyanogenMod 10 custom ROM.

Long-running photography management site Photobucket on Thursday unveiled the beta version of its redesigned user experience, which gives the service more competitive footing against the Web's dominant --some would even say default-- photo-sharing site, Facebook.

How could it possibly compete with Facebook? Well, that's the thing. Photobucket obviously understands that it would be silly to even try to compete. So if you can't compete with Facebook, you hook your service into Facebook and add bonus features.

When you’re watching TV the remote control seems to have a life of its own, often resulting in it disappearing when you decide you want to switch channels. Being somewhat larger than a standard Sky remote, your iPad is far less likely to go missing, so wouldn’t it be great if you could use the tablet you’re using to check emails while you watch TV to control your Sky+HD box? The release of Sky+ 4.0 means that this is exactly what you can now do.

Getting up and running is very simple -- just make sure that your Sky+HYD box and your iPad ate connected to the same network and you’re ready to go. While the app itself is not new, many of its existing features have been updated and there are plenty of new options that have been added as well. The big new feature is remote control. Using gestures you can control the playback of whatever you’re watching, tapping to play and pause, and swiping to skip back and forth.

Some photo correction programs are optimized for simplicity. If you want to sharpen an image in Paint.NET, say, you’ll select Sharpen from the menu, and drag a slider to represent the amount of sharpening you need: easy.

Photivo is more about giving you power and control. Instead of just a single sharpen algorithm, for instance, it supports Gradient sharpening, Wiener, Inverse Diffusion, Unsharp Mask, Highpass and more, and each of these in turn has multiple settings you can tweak.

At 17, I hitchhiked with a friend from Maine to Boston, where was the regional Federal Communications Commission office. The agency heavily regulated radio, and I couldn't be a deejay without obtaining a Third Class license, which required a test and some math skills (yeah, just to spin vinyl). I flunked and thumbed rides a second time, passing the exam and getting a five-year license. My radio career started at college station WMEB.

Much has changed about music since the late 1970s, when punkers rebelled against their disco-loving Baby Boomer siblings. But surprisingly much is the same, too -- or so Nielsen's "Music 360" report reveals. Radio doesn't dominate music discovery like it once did (I partly blame canned broadcasts for taking the personality out of the airwaves), yet remains top source: 48 percent of people find out about new music from radio. Friend recommendations is distant second (10 percent) followed by YouTube (7 percent).

As expected, the Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 RTM builds were made available for download to Microsoft MSDN and TechNet subscribers Wednesday afternoon, giving developers early access to the "first final" build of Microsoft's flagship operating system and development environment.

This round of releases focuses on getting developers the tools they need to get Windows 8 apps ready for sale when the OS goes commercially available on October 26. As such, the new Windows Store is a major focus of updates today.