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One of the qualities of the Nokia Lumia 900 that I singled out in my favorable review of the device was its camera, which I described as "special." In the slideshow above, I've included the photos I snapped that helped me arrive at that conclusion.

If you’re unhappy with the composition of a photo then your first instinct may be to crop it, removing areas without important visual content to help the viewer concentrate on whatever is left. But this can only go so far. And if there’s plenty of content at the edge of the photo then you may hardly be able to crop the image at all.

Content-aware image resizing (CAIR) provides another, more intelligent way to reframe your shot. Essentially it allows you to define content you’d like to remove from a photo, wherever it might be, and can then strip it out (hopefully without leaving any trace). And as a result the image will shrink in size, sometimes dramatically, but you still retain the core content. (If you’re not sure what we mean then the relevant Wikipedia page has some sample images which should make everything clear.)

On April 4, 2011, Larry Page returned as Google's chief executive after a decade's repast. In his first year back on the job, Google has dramatically changed. I planned to write a massive reflective story, but thought it'd be better if you did. A story with your assessment of Page and Google will be more interesting, and revealing, about the company and perceptions about it. I'll collect your comments here and put them together into a follow-up post. To get you started, I'll do a quickie review of Google over the last 12 months and call out a few highlights.

At the start of 2011, I called it the "year of Google", and it was. Much credit belongs to Page as he axed services not core to the Google lifestyle, acquired Motorola Mobility and refocused the company on rapid iteration. Just look how far Android and Chrome advanced over the last 12 months or how quickly Google+ went from conception to 100 million-plus users. If 2011 wasn't the year of Larry Page, 2012 will be. But will you like it, or what he has done to Google?

This could be the easiest review I've ever written: The Nokia Lumia 900 is absolutely top-notch hardware at an affordable price, and it has everything it takes to be a giant success.

Last week, we established that 60% of BetaNews readers want this phone, and you know what? After one week with this device, I can conclusively say that our readers' desire to own the Lumia 900 is completely warranted.

Some people see WYSIWYG web builders as basic, limited, strictly for novice home users who’ll be satisfied with the poor quality templates and limited customisation options they usually offer.

Xara Web Designer MX 8 Premium, fortunately, has a very different philosophy.

Citrix is making its mark on open-source cloud computing, following CloudStack software's release to the Apache Foundation. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based technology company acquired the rights to CloudStack with last year's Cloud.com acquisition. Citrix is a significant contributor to another open-source cloud computing platform called OpenStack, and one of the earliest members.

RackSpace and NASA jointly created OpenStack in 2010. Since that time, the project has amassed nearly 150 contributors including Dell, AMD, Intel, HP and AT&T. It aims to be an alternative to Amazon Web Services, which is a popular platform for IT deployments looking to embrace the cloud.

Instagram dutifully led the charge of vintage camera filter apps, but did so as an iOS exclusive since its beginnings in 2010.

Today, after effectively "conquering" iOS by being named Apple's iPhone app of the year for 2011, Instagram has moved onto the next great frontier, the Android platform.

Taking care of your computer can easily turn into a full time job, so it makes sense to delegate at least some of the responsibility to a third party tool. Uniblue PowerSuite is an impressive collection of maintenance tools that can be used to manage the registry, keep drivers up to date, clean out junk files and much more. The latest addition to the suite is MaxiDisk, a defrag tool that makes it simple to keep your hard drive shipshape -- and there are a few extra options to investigate as well.

At its heart, MaxiDisk is a fairly basic defragmentation tool, but if all you have used in the past is the one that is built into Windows, it is a great leap forward. The analysis process is completed faster than Windows’ defragmenter and you are provided with basic information about the layout of the data on your drive, along with an indication of whether or not defragging is required. The re-organization of files on your disk is something that unavoidably takes time, but it is something that is well worth doing.

Genie9 has released the latest edition of its flagship backup tool, Timeline 2012.

The program’s emphasis remains very much on ease of use, but there are some practical new features, too. Genie Timeline’s new Metro-style Smart Selection screen makes it very easy to choose the type of files you’d like to back up for instance: Office files, emails, bookmarks, videos, pictures, whatever it might be.

Rumors about Google's forthcoming tablet are increasing, which astounds me -- as they portray this as something new. Hey, Google already formally stated it would produce an Android tablet. The rumormongers have got the reasons wrong, too. Google isn't gunning for Apple but Amazon.

The retail giant is by far the biggest competitive threat standing before Android today. Amazon has customized Android, released its own hardware, ditched Google's browser for its own Silk, established a viable app store alternative to Google Play and created a curated user experience that rivals Apple's. In just one quarter, Amazon's Kindle Fire jumped ahead of all other Android tablets, putting it second to iPad. Every Kindle Fire sold is one more brick in the wall blocking the success of the broader Android ecosystem.

Groupon was called the "world's fastest growing company," with 100 million subscribers in 45 different countries and a valuation as high as $25 billion. The service it offers consumers is relatively simple to grasp: get enough people to sign up for a sale or promotion at a restaurant, store, or service, and the promotion then becomes available to everyone who signed up.

Of course, accurately ascribing a value to Groupon --and indeed even properly managing its own accounting practices-- has proven to be very difficult. This week, Groupon could find itself under the scrutiny of the Securities and Exchange Commission yet again.

If your PC isn’t working properly then Microsoft’s Fix it Solution Center is a great place to start looking for solutions. It has troubleshooters to address problems with performance, stability, security, media playback and a whole lot more, and most of these can be launched in just a couple of clicks.

Of course if your PC isn’t connected to the internet, and network connectivity might be the very reason you need some help, then the site isn’t going to be able to help. But fortunately there’s also a local version available in the shape on Microsoft Fix it Portable, and while it has some problems the program could be a welcome addition to your troubleshooting toolkit.

These days, more and more of us watch video in a variety of different ways. The ease and versatility of modern media can leave you looking at your old collection of videos and DVDs with some annoyance. While you can play DVDs on your notebook or desktop, you can’t insert them into your smartphone or tablet, and what happens if they get scratched or damaged?

Never fear, because we’ve put together a list of useful tools, many of which are completely free to use, to help you not just rip and capture video from archaic sources, but to access it from other devices, too. You should carefully check your own country’s copyright laws before following this tutorial because even with Blu-rays, DVDs and videos you legally own, you may find you’re prohibited from making personal copies, even for backup purposes.

The Broadband Commission for Digital Development, an initiative set up by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the UN's Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a report on Monday, concluding that Information and Communications Technologies --specifically mobile broadband and cloud computing architectures-- actually help reduce greenhouse gases.

At first blush, it seems obvious: The better connected we are, the less we have to travel to meetings or to send documents, subsequently, less fuel is burned. Likewise, the less physical data and communications equipment we use in the workplace, the less energy we will need.

Simply stated: customer satisfaction. Lots of it. Oh, yeah, and the new display.

Apple started selling its newest tablet on March 8. Between the 22nd and 28th, ChangeWave surveyed new iPad buyers; 82 percent claim to be "very satisfied", which is up from February and 74 percent of iPad 2 owners. When combined with "somewhat" responses, 98 percent of new iPad owners are satisfied, compared to 97 percent for the previous model. The difference is the increase in "very" satisfied versus "somewhat".