Stories by: Alex Wawro

Do you know where your smartphone is? Unless you're using it to read PCWorld.com, your phone is probably plugged into an outlet somewhere to charge, because the battery stinks.

Getting work done with just a tablet is hard. Many of us carry Android or iOS tablets to stay connected while we’re away from our PC, but without a proper keyboard or mouse it’s difficult to do much more than answer a few emails or play Angry Birds.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit District's August shutdown of wireless service to squelch a demonstration in San Francisco raised anew questions about the use of technology in the face of authority. In this third installment in a series of FAQs, we examine the rights and responsibilities of social networks in protecting your privacy and your free speech. Be sure to check out the first two installments: a primer on your right to phone service during a protest and a discussion of your right to photograph the police.

Think PC gaming is dead? Think again. Here are 21 awesome PC games that rely on system performance and unique gameplay that consoles and iPads just can't match ...

Your e-mail password is your last line of defense when it comes to online privacy and security; if a hacker cracks that, they could potentially reset the passwords of and gain access to your social networks, your bank account and even your identity by taking advantage of the ubiquitous "I Forgot My Password" button.

Our social networks say a lot about us. When you register with a Website like Facebook, you voluntarily give up personal information like your name, photo, and phone number in exchange for the privilege of access to a network that makes it easy to keep in touch with friends and family. Facebook then makes money aggregating that information for sale to advertisers looking to target groups of potential customers with specific ages and interests. It’s an information economy, and to be clear, Facebook cleaves to a privacy policy that only permits the sharing of “non-personally identifiable attributes” with advertisers.

You may already know the basics of Internet security and keeping your personal data private while browsing the Web: Use a firewall, don't open attachments you aren't expecting, and never follow links from strangers. But what about your smartphone? The ease with which security researcher Georgia Weidman was able to infect Android phones with her custom botnet during the 2011 ShmooCon security conference suggests that anyone concerned about the privacy of the personal data stored on their smartphone should think twice before downloading dubious or otherwise untrustworthy apps.

A new wave of Web-connected printers from the likes of HP and Lexmark are changing the way we dole out documents. Instead of dumb single-purpose devices, a modern multifunction cloud printer can print any document from nearly any device, anywhere you have an Internet connection. It’s a quantum leap forward in terms of flexibility, and every successful business owner knows you need to stay flexible and adapt to the needs of your customers.

Early Tuesday morning Norton announced results of a Strategy One survey conducted last September that suggest one in three U.S. citizens have had their cell phones lost or stolen.

Recently, after testing two MacBook Air models running Windows 7, we published results that showed the thin and light Apple laptops outperformed most Windows-based netbooks and ultraportable notebooks. Hundreds of readers commented on the article, with many of the comments going something like this: "The MacBook Air costs far more than many of the laptops you've compared it against. How does it do against similarly priced notebooks?"