Stories by Rick Broida

Over the past few weeks I've had the opportunity to test-drive a couple Windows 8 laptops, and even though I've used the OS intermittently for months now, I still find it jarring every time the Metro interface (a.k.a. Start screen) appears.

It's been a big year for smartphones--the iPhone 5, the Galaxy S III, the debut of Windows Phone 8--but as always, it's the apps that matter.

A new year is upon us, and that can mean only one thing: resolutions. For most folks, these tend to be of the "get in shape" or "quit smoking" variety. But if you're a PCWorld reader, consider adding some PC-specific resolutions to the mix.

This is the time of year when friends, family members, casual acquaintances, and people in the street stop me to ask about buying a new PC.

There’s an elephant in the room, and it’s wearing a Microsoft T-shirt.

The smartest folks I know are the ones who have bookshelves stacked with reference guides. Knowledge is power, and all that.

Last week you learned three ways to make Outlook easier to live with, and before that, Gmail. Now let's turn our attention to the world's most popular word processor: Microsoft Word.

Last year I made the switch to Google Chrome from Mozilla Firefox, and I haven't looked back. Google's browser feels faster, smarter, and more streamlined -- which helps explain why it's a top choice for business users.

Business still revolves around the Big Three software applications: word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. And Microsoft still charges an arm and a leg for Office licenses. What's a cash-strapped small shop to do?

If you're in the business of making presentations, you know what a time-suck it can be to work with PowerPoint on a laptop. You have to connect a projector, wait an eternity for the PC to boot, run PowerPoint, load your slide deck, switch the laptop's video output to projector mode, and on and on. It's easy to blow 10-20 minutes just getting set up for your presentation--not a productive use of your time.

True story: I'd been getting fed up with Firefox, in part because it was acting sluggish and flaky, so I decided to give Google's Chrome browser a try. And by "try," I mean make it my primary browser for a couple weeks.

Since I last ran a reader Q&A a few weeks ago, I've received another compelling question. Reader Robert has an older Emachines desktop that recently developed a problem: "I installed a driver updater tool, and when I deleted it, it did something that changed my BIOS. The black screen appears when I boot up and reads: 'System BIOS shadowed. Check time and date settings. System CMOS checksum bad--default configuration used.'"

True story. I'd been getting fed up with Firefox, in part because it was acting sluggish and flaky, so I decided to give Google's Chrome browser a try. And by "try," I mean make it my primary browser for a couple weeks.

Wine gets better with age. Men get more distinguished-looking. And some programs are like perennials, returning each year with fresh blooms and stronger stems. Indeed, think of some of the world's best productivity tools and system utilities, and I'll wager that some were "planted" at least five years ago--decades in computer years. Take a look at eight of these blossoming apps, all of which are more awesome than ever, and all of which are, amazingly, free.

Reader Patricia has a question: "Why can't application software be put on USB drives instead of [hard] disks?"