Five tips to speed up your Mac

Five tips to speed up your Mac

Boost your Mac's performance and reclaim hard-drive space with this handful of tips.

Matt Elliott/CNET

The only place I like seeing a beach ball is at a beach or in a stadium during a baseball game or concert. The one place I least like to see a beach ball is on my aging MacBook Pro, where the spinning beach ball has become an altogether too familiar a sight. If your Mac has become frustratingly slow, there are a number of ways you can speed it up again.

Before you engage in any maintenance, I would urge you to take caution and back up your data. For Macs, it's easy: grab an external drive and run Time Machine. With your Mac's drive freshly backed up, you may proceed.

1. Replace your hard drive with an SSD

Moving from a traditional spinning hard drive to a solid-state drive (SSD) is the single best thing you can do to improve the performance of an aging MacBook. Follow Sharon Profis's instructions on how to upgrade your MacBook Pro with an SSD. You'll be shocked at not only how easy it is to do but also at the huge impact it has on performance.

I just performed the maneuver myself, replacing my 2011-era MacBook Pro's 500GB hard drive with the 500GB Samsung 850 EVO. The Samsung SSD and a SATA-to-USB cable kit cost me just north of $200 on Amazon. And the whole procedure took less than an hour (not counting the half a day it took to clone my MacBook's hard drive to the SSD). Really, the hardest part of the whole thing was tracking down a size 6T torx-head screwdriver for the four torx screws that help hold the hard drive in place.

2. Add more memory

While you have your MacBook opened to replace its hard drive, you may want take the opportunity to add more memory. Like the replacing a hard drive, adding more memory is a straightforward, simple process.

First, you need to find the right type of memory for your specific MacBook model. The brand doesn't matter; everyone has his or her favorite. Just make sure you are buying the right amount, type, and speed. Apple has a handy support page that shows the memory specifications for a variety of models, along with an illustrated guide to replacing the memory.

In my case, my early-2011 MacBook Pro has two DIMM slots, each of which is occupied by a 2MB module. Since I don't have any free slots, I will need to replace those two modules with two 4GB modules. I need DDR3 memory with a speed of 1,333MHz.

After finding the right RAM for your MacBook, you will need to power it off and remove the 10 small screws on its bottom panel (if you don't already have your MacBook opened to replace the hard drive). Be sure you note the position of the screws when you remove them; some are short and some are longer. Since I need to replace the existing memory instead of simply adding a new module to an open memory slot, I had to push outward on the two levers holding the sides of the memory module to release it before gently sliding it out. Repeat for the second module. Install your new memory by lining up the bottom notch of each module with the memory slot and push it in until it clicks. Once your new memory is installed, screw the bottom panel back into place.

3. Clean your hard drive

If you aren't up for the challenge of getting inside your MacBook's case (or are already using an SSD and have maxed out the memory), there are still some ways you can speed up your system. Instead of replacing your hard drive, you need to clean up your data on the existing drive. I'd wager that over the years, you have cluttered your Mac with files and applications you no longer use or need.

To get started, let's look in the Applications and Downloads folders. If there are apps in there you can't remember installing, odds are you can live without them. Move them to the Trash to reclaim some hard-drive space. There are files associated with every application you install, however, and they are left behind when you simply move an application to the Trash. Mac OS X lacks anything resembling an uninstaller, but AppZapper is one such app. With it, you can uninstall apps and the related files. AppZapper is free for the first five zaps, after which you'll need to pay $12.95.

Next, let's clean up the applications you are keeping. When you install an app on your Mac, the piece of software arrives as part of a package of files, including permissions that tell OS X which users can do what things with specific files. Over time, these permissions can get changed, resulting in your Mac lagging, freezing or crashing. Repairing these disk permissions, in the most basic terms, amounts to reshuffling and re-dealing these permissions so that they return to their rightful place. Thankfully, OS X has a built-in tool called Disk Utility that does just the trick. Read my previous post on how to repair disk permissions for a step-by-step guide.

Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

If your Mac acts like it needs a nap every afternoon, when you are at the height of multitasking, there is an easy way to see which of your open applications is using the most system resources. Open theActivity Monitor. The numbers are constantly fluctuating, but they show you the amount of CPU and memory resources each app is using. After watching the Activity Monitor for a while this morning, I see that Firefox generally takes up more CPU resources and more than triple the memory resources. Perhaps it's time for me to abandon Firefox and use Chrome exclusively. Also, I found that the sluggish iTunes isn't nearly the resource hog I thought it was. My apologies, iTunes.

Now that you've paid some attention to your applications, it's time to look at the files cluttering your drive. You can use Finder to search for huge files. To do so, open Finder and select the volume you'd like to search. Next, choose File > Find (or hit Command-F). Click on the Kind pull-down menu and select Other. When the Select a search attribute window opens, check the box for File Size, uncheck any other boxes, and click OK. Change the "equals" pull-down menu option to "is greater than" and then change KB to MB. Enter a minimum files file size such as, say, 100MB. You can then delete any files that show up on the list that you no longer need -- or move them to an external drive at the very least.

4. Reduce login items

If your Mac is slow to boot up, the problem may be it simply has too many applications to open that it can't load the OS in a timely fashion. Many applications by default open automatically at startup. Go toSystem Preferences > Users & Groups and then click on the Login Items tab to see a list of the apps that open when you boot your Mac. Highlight the apps you don't want to open at startup and click the minus-sign button below the list of apps.

Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

5. Keep current with OS X

Apple releases new versions of OS X as free upgrades, so there is no reason not to stay current. New versions of OS X contain performance enhancements and security improvements to keep your Mac running smoothly and safely. Check in periodically with the Updates tab of the Mac App Store for OS X updates and don't ignore notifications of updates that are ready to install.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 packs new movement mechanics and futuristic tech powers

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 packs new movement mechanics and futuristic tech powers

The campaign is cooperative and the multiplayer mode has specialists with unique abilities. Read up on the steps Treyarch is taking to keep Call of Duty vital.

The future of Call of Duty is a much discussed topic. What will they do next year? How will next year's studio build on last year's effort? How will they keep the series fresh? When will players finally tire of the Call of Duty formula? These questions are asked in message boards and on discussion shows, but also inside the walls of developer Treyarch. Now in their tenth year of developing Call of Duty games, the folks at Treyarch have had a hand on the wheel of this series for some time now, and have confronted these questions again and again. This year, with Call of Duty: Black Ops III, they have an eye not just on the future of Call of Duty, but on the future of humanity itself.

In Black Ops II, Treyarch took the Cold War setting of Black Ops and paired it with a drone-dominated future, linking the two with overarching themes of enthusiasm and trepidation about the use of cutting-edge technology in military and espionage operations. This core conflict returns in Black Ops III, extrapolated years beyond Black Ops II into a future where human augmentation has replaced drone technology as the freaky tech du jour. Humanoid battle robots are now commonplace, but the real power--and threat--lies with human soldiers who boast robotic replacement parts and neural networking implants. Strong as the dickens and smart as the data they can instantly access, these soldiers have mental and physical capabilities that provide the driving force for Black Ops III's campaign.

In the pre-taped gameplay demo I saw during a recent visit to the Treyarch studios, the player character arrived in a train station in Cairo that served as a makeshift outpost for the allies he or she was there to contact. Black Ops III is the first CoD game that allows the player to choose the gender of the campaign protagonist, and while there is separate voice acting for both male and female characters, the script is roughly the same. According to Jason Blundell, the campaign director for Black Ops III, they took inspiration from the character of Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series; a strong character can be a strong character without the world around them bending to accommodate their gender.

The train station entry scene used one of my favorite gaming tropes, the on-rails transit sequence that establishes the scene before the player can really even move. After exiting the train, the player proceeded to seek out an informant to help them get to the bottom of a massive intelligence leak that originated at a CIA facility. The echoes of Edward Snowden resounded around the room as the developers spoke about the thing that made this kind of leak even more compromising for a futuristic soldier: the direct neural interface.

The DNI is basically a computer and sensor network implanted in the soldier that allows them access to data and communications, lets them hack into computer tech, and even helps them regulate their own biological functions. Having your password leaked means a lot more when your ability to walk is on the line. In the Black Ops III campaign, the abilities associated with the DNI (and any robo-parts you might have) are called cyber cores and cyber rigs. You'll be able to choose which of these abilities to acquire, similar to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's exo suit modifications. It didn't seem like the upgrade tree would be a broad as in, say, Deus Ex: Human Revolution; I got the impression that you'd be able to use most of the abilities in the course of the campaign, rather than choosing specific paths. There are some limitations to your loadout, however, and these make it valuable to coordinate your cyber choices with your teammates. Your human teammates.

Yes, Black Ops III has four-player online campaign co-op throughout the entire campaign (and two-player splitscreen local co-op). During the campaign demo, we saw two skirmishes, the second of which was designed to show off the larger environments that the studio designed in order to accommodate their co-op structure. In this scene, the players sallied forth from a formidable mobile wall dropped into place by a friendly helicopter. A broad concrete area stretched out ahead of them, barely recognizable as a street thanks to enemy fortifications and ruined vehicles. The goal was to use a handheld launcher to shoot explosive charges into the columns below the street and then detonate them to collapse the whole area. Of course, the charges were also effective against softer targets.

Ready to blow.

But targeting the supports and holding off the enemy attack took a bit more than just a big gun. Using the DNI to scan the area revealed the target areas and tagged any enemies spotted by the player or the player's squad. This location data is shared passively to your allies because all your DNIs are connected. Linking the player's eyes into a (potentially corruptible) network opens wide the possibility for messing with the player's perception, and Treyarch is proud of their history of messing with players' minds. There were strong hints that what you see might not always be what is actually going on, and while there won't be branching story decisions like those in Black Ops II, they did describe the storytelling as "layered," teasing that there might be more to discover on subsequent playthroughs.

This playthrough showed off a few more abilities, including hacking a flying drone and turning its machine guns against those who deployed it. A cloaking device automatically activates when using this ability is triggered, so you can use it mid-battle without scurrying into a corner first. And then there were the terror bees, technically known as fireflies, which are a cloud of flying nano-robots that swarm enemies and, when upgraded, can set them on fire. Drone hacking and flaming terror bees join a list of about 40 upgradeable abilities that players will be able to use in the campaign.

The other campaign skirmish took place during an assault on the train station and started with a nasty new drone that looks like a metal yoga ball. In a gory scripted moment, an enemy ball rolled up to an ally of mine and deployed sharp metal blades that skewered the poor guy right in front of my face. Yes, it was gross, and yes, these balls are available as scorestreak rewards in multiplayer.

While shooting these drones and the bipedal warrior bots that marched into the shattered atrium, the player showed off some tricks of the new traversal system. I was curious to see what Treyarch would do the high-energy exo suit mobility system from Advanced Warfare, and I was glad to see they had their own take on those invigorating movement mechanics. But while Advanced Warfare was largely focused on quick, darting motions for speedy incursion and evasion, Black Ops III is more interested in fluidity, and in letting you have your gun out as much as possible.

Instead of a double jump, or a jump-and-midair-dash, Black Ops III has a thrust jump. It can boost you to a higher ledge or extend your jump distance, and it operates on an analog energy meter instead of firing at a specific burst intensity. So leap straight up and tap the jump button to hover in the air with small puffs of energy. Use the same feathering technique to extend your jump with mid-air hops, or burn the whole meter to glide in a long, floating arc. The booster is omnidirectional as well, preserving the diversity of movement offered in AW, but it doesn't function when your feet are on the ground. For ground-based mobility, there's the power slide, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Activated by holding the crouch button for a moment (say goodbye to dolphin diving), this move triggers a slide in the direction you are facing. But once you're sliding, you are free to aim wherever you like, making this not only a powerful evasive maneuver, but also a potent offensive tactic. Landing your jump directly into a slide, or sliding past a door while aiming in are just a few of the effective applications we found while playing multiplayer.

Over the course of a few hours, I got to play a dozen or so rounds of Black Ops III multiplayer. Getting the hang of the traversal system didn't take very long, as recent experience with Advanced Warfare, theHalo 5: Guardians beta, and Titanfall had prepared me for more movement trickery in my first-person shooters. The latter reference applies particularly to the wall run, which is fueled by the same energy bar as the thrust jump and power slide. Like in Titanfall, you need to approach at an angle to get your wall run going, and leaping between walls resets your energy meter. Black Ops III throws in a new twist, allowing you to change directions mid-run just by turning around and tapping the jump button. Also, there are water areas on certain maps, and you can swim, with your gun pointed ahead at all times.

This is one of the core goals of Black Ops III multiplayer, allowing you to keep your gun up and be ready to fire as much as possible. A new mantling system streamlines movement by allowing you to clamber over obstacles you encounter while moving in any direction (yes, including backwards) with the tap of a button, and keeping your gun up all the while. The more your gun is up, Treyarch's thinking goes, the more likely you'll be prepared for combat when it comes and the less likely you'll feel like there was nothing you could've done to avoid being killing. And if you can have your gun up in more situations, that expands the combat possibilities in a non-trivial way.

He's not your chap.

The biggest change to multiplayer comes with the introduction of specialists. In addition to choosing a loadout you've designed in Treyarch's signature pick-ten system, you must now choose from one of nine specialist characters. These are individual soldiers with names and callsigns and back stories that are linked to the fiction of the Black Ops III universe. More crucially, each has a unique weapon and a unique ability that can be deployed during combat. You pick your specialist, you choose the weapon OR the ability (not both), and then you're ready for combat.

Maybe you'll pick Seraph, a woman from the Chinese cartels who can whip out a one-shot kill pistol called the Annihilator or boost the rate at which she earns progress towards scorestreaks for a short time. Or perhaps you'll go with Outrider, an archer from the Brazilian favelas who gibs her enemies with explosive arrows or activates a radar pulse that highlights any nearby enemies with red silhouettes. If you're playing a Capture the Flag match, an American soldier named Ruin might be your choice for his ability to trigger temporary movement acceleration, or you might just enjoy ground pounding anyone in the area to death with his leaping gravity spike attack.

And then there's Reaper, the robot who looks like a cross between a terminator and a geth. Its arm can transform into a deadly minigun, but it's its ability to warp to where it was six seconds prior that is the most disruptive of all the specialists we saw (only four out the nine). Understanding and predicting your opponents' positions is absolutely crucial in multiplayer combat, and with Glitch, Reaper can be in front of you one second and then behind or above you the next. Run into a crowded room, drop C4, and then Glitch away. Leap into pool, then Glitch back out and shoot the enemy that followed you in. The potential for psyching out opponents and gaining a positional advantage is huge.

That's Ruin. He ruins things.

Use of specialist weapons and abilities is limited, though, as they are controlled by an energy meter. This meter is always filling up and does not reset upon death, like scorestreaks, so specialist powers are something all players will be able to use, regardless of skill. More skilled players, however, will be able to use them more frequently, as XP-earning actions will help the meter fill faster. Speaking of XP, in addition to the traditional global XP and weapon XP, each specialist character earns XP and has a progression pathway that will unlock stuff, but what exactly that stuff is wasn't divulged at this time.

But there was a lot of information shared in this first look at Black Ops III, and we're expecting more to come at E3, where the game will be playable on the show floor. Treyarch has confirmed there will be a zombies mode, complete with a weird-as-heck story line and a full XP progression system, but they played coy about further details. They also talked about gunsmith, their new weapon customization system which boasts multiple cosmetic variants for common attachments, as well as three fully paintable surfaces on each gun. How will they keep their weapons from being plastered in butts and swear words? Only time will tell. And while PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 versions of the game are confirmed, what is in store for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 players? Perhaps another studio is working on a scaled-down version of the game, or maybe this is the year CoD leaves behind the last generation.

The novelty of the specialists and the smoothness of the traversal system were the highlights for me during my play time. I'm eager to see what other specialists bring to the table, and how they mix with the abilities and weapons we've already seen. Though at first the specialist system seemed an odd addition, after a few matches they felt like just another element of a deadly battlefield. Scorestreak rewards have basically functioned as special powers for years, and having something that powerful that you can reliably use is an appreciated bonus for someone who doesn't often chain together long streaks. Adding new things while preserving the core experience is the perennial challenge for the Call of Duty franchise, one that Treyarch is taking head on in the lead up to the November 6th release of Black Ops III.

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Gears of War HD remaster runs at 60fps (report)

Gears of War HD remaster runs at 60fps (report)

Frame rate revealed, as development will be handled by an outside studio, according to sources.

On Friday, a report emerged that claimed Microsoft was working on an HD remaster of the original Gears of War for Xbox One. Now, additional sources speaking to Polygon have shed more light on the project, which remains officially unannounced.

The site says it has seen a handful of multiplayer screenshots for the new Gears of War remaster, noting that the Xbox Oneversion features better lighting and improved texture quality. The publication adds that multiplayer runs at 60fps.

This frame rate, which previous Gears of War games were not able to achieve, is the staple of Activision's Call of Duty series. This year's Halo 5: Guardians will also run at 60fps.

In addition, the Gears of War HD Remaster will reportedly feature new cinematics.

Another source told Polygon that Splash Damage, the UK-based independent studio behind games likeBrink and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, is handling development on the Gears of War HD remaster. Multiple job postings at the developer reference that the studio is currently working on a "very well known and highly popular AAA title with next gen technology."

Microsoft acquired the Gears of War franchise from Epic Games last year, putting its internal team Black Tusk Studios to work on a new entry in the action-shooter series for Xbox One. That project is separate from the reported remaster.

As for when Microsoft may officially announce the Gears of War HD Remaster, and maybe Black Tusk's new project, producer Rod Fergusson previously teased that fans should tune in to E3 in June. For its part, Microsoft has said its E3 presentation this year will focus on first-party games.

The original Gears of War was released in 2006 for Xbox 360 and PC. It has since spawned three major follow-ups: Gears of War 2 (2008), Gears of War 3 (2011), and Gears of War: Judgment (2013). A spinoff called Gears of War Exile--rumored to be a Kinect game--was canceled.

Though it certainly sounds like the Gears of War HD Remaster is in development, Microsoft has not offered any kind of statement whatsoever regarding the project.

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Windows 10 pricing after first year remains up in the air

Windows 10 pricing after first year remains up in the air

Microsoft is still figuring out what to charge for Windows 10 after the operating system will no longer be free -- or how the software will evolve.

Windows 10, due out in the summer, will be free to users of Windows 7 or later for up to one year. After that, however, Microsoft says it's still working out the kinks.Nick Statt/CNET

Microsoft has bold ambitions for Windows 10: To power 1 billion devices by 2018. To achieve that goal, the company for the first time will let most users update to the new version at no charge for one year after Windows 10's release, slated for later this summer.

After that, however, Microsoft doesn't know what it will charge customers to upgrade -- or how it will deliver upgrades in the future.

Joe Belfiore, vice president of operating systems, said Thursday the company's primary concern is getting the operating system onto a critical mass of devices as quickly as possible.

How will people get their hands on Windows 10 after the first year? "I don't know, " Belfiore said at a press event during Microsoft's annual Build developer conference in San Francisco.

While Microsoft has never claimed it wouldn't charge customers to upgrade to its latest software, executives have put greater emphasis on casting the software as far as possible than on pricing.

Users who update to will get "new features and benefits for a long, long time," said Belfiore. Those add-ons will include application and full OS updates, he added.

Microsoft is taking a big gamble with Windows 10: That Windows can become integral to every mobile device and every piece of software we use. That's because the one operating system can run universal apps developed for any device, all delivered via Microsoft's cloud. By design the software should, in theory, know exactly how you'll want to use it.

The result is a very different strategy for how the world's largest software maker delivers and sells its products. To that end, Microsoft has transformed Windows from a one-time software license into a perpetual service. It's also making sure its applications can live on many different devices, even those not running Windows. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to get customers aboard.

"Microsoft's strategy goes beyond Windows 10, but a successful launch and swift user adoption is crucial to create the foundation for Microsoft's business model transition," Geoff Blaber, vice president of Americas at CCS Insight, wrote in an analyst note following the company's Build keynote presentation Wednesday.

Uncertainty about Windows 10's price tag may urge more PC users to upgrade sooner rather than later. Yet it also raises questions about the benefits and new features users can expect when they pay for Windows 10. The company has left open the possibility that substantial OS updates could merit a distinct number or name change, similar to how Apple has transitioned to an annual cycle of incremental updates to its software with splashy names like Mavericks and Yosemite. The question is whether Microsoft will charge and market such updates.

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How to add more storage to an iOS device

How to add more storage to an iOS device

Can't fit all your music, movies, documents and other stuff? Before you spend money on a higher-capacity iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, read this.

Apple's iDevices famously -- make that infamously -- rely on fixed storage. If you need more space, well, too bad.

Granted, you can try a utility such as PhoneClean, which can reclaim some space, but it gets you only so far. For any kind of significant storage boost, you have little choice but to upgrade to a more capacious iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

Iogear

Actually, you do have one other option. A growing number of devices give you extra space for music, movies, photos, documents and other data, and some of them are surprisingly affordable.

I'm talking about wireless card readers (also known as media hubs), which connect via Wi-Fi to your iDevice. So instead of popping a microSD card inside your iPhone or iPad (which, alas, is impossible), you pop one into an external drive you can keep stowed in a bag, pocket or wherever.

Suppose, for example, you're taking a long trip. You want to bring along your entire music library -- not just the handful of playlists that fit on your 16GB iPad Mini -- and enough movies to last you through two or more long flights.

With one of these readers, you can stock, say, a 32GB SD card with more than enough songs and videos, while still leaving space on your Mini for apps and other stuff. And several models support USB flash drives as well, so if you have a few of those lying around, fill 'em with stuff!

In broad strokes, most of these devices work like this:

Step 1: Connect the reader to your PC, then fill it with any and all media/data you want to bring along.

Step 2: Install the companion app that goes with the reader.

Step 3: Run the app, then connect to the reader. Now you can stream your media, view your photos, access your documents, transfer files, and so on.

The RAVPower FileHub 5-in-1 is not only a wireless media hub, but also a portable power supply.RAVPower

One key feature to look for when shopping for a wireless reader is a pass-through option, which allows your device to stay connected to a Wi-Fi network while simultaneously connected to the reader. Otherwise it's a huge hassle to disconnect and reconnect all the time.

In the past I've tested a variety of these wireless media hubs, and there's one in particular that stands out: the RAVPower FileHub 5-in-1, which actually does a lot more than just sling media.

But let's start there: the FileHub will stream music, movies and the like from whatever you plug into it: an SD card (or microSD with adapter), a flash drive or even an external hard drive.

Beyond that, it offers both Wi-Fi hot-spot and NAS features, file transfers between storage and your devices and a 3,000mAh battery, which powers not only the FileHub itself, but also your device if it needs extra juice.

It's a bargain, too: the FileHub currently sells for $39.99 on Amazon.

By the way, if you need a lot of added space, a few companies offer wireless hard drives that work much the same way -- except now you're looking at up to a terabyte of mobile storage. However, these drives are heavier and bulkier, and they cost quite a bit more. One solid pick: the Patriot Aero.

In an ideal world, iDevices would have expansion slots. In this one, you can expand by way of external storage. All you need is a $40 accessory and some inexpensive memory cards/flash drives.

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Microsoft's message to Build developers: This isn't your dad's Windows

Microsoft's message to Build developers: This isn't your dad's Windows

The software maker is on a mission to make hardware irrelevant, software the king and Windows the most powerful engine for every device. But the challenge starts now.

CEO Satya Nadella lays out his vision for Microsoft at the company's annual Build developer conference.CNET

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is a known fan of German philosophy -- in particular the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, from whom he borrowed when he said his company must have "courage in the face of reality" shortly after he became chief executive of the software maker 15 months ago.

Nearly a year and a half later, he's more confident. Instead of facing down reality, Microsoft must now have "courage in the face of opportunity," Nadella said Wednesday when speaking with analysts at the company's annual Build developer conference.

At Build, Microsoft's main mission is to convince developers and customers that its next Windows operating system, Windows 10, adds enough new features and technology to push the software into the modern era. To do that, Microsoft has transformed Windows into a service that can be layered over every device, with so-called universal apps that work across any screen and software that should, in theory, know exactly how you'll want to use it. Microsoft has also let its core products, like Office apps, move everywhere freely in an effort to build more roads back to the heart of its ecosystem.

Microsoft remains the world's largest software maker with Windows running on 95 percent of the world's computers. But the company missed the boat on smartphones and has, over the years, watched confidence in its platform dwindle as developers shifted focus elsewhere to Apple's iOS, Google'sAndroid and the Web at large. PCs sales have also been on a steady decline, all while Microsoft's core productivity software has faced fierce competition from free cloud-based services."Windows 10 is not just another release of Windows, but a new generation of Windows," Nadella said onstage. "The tech business is about being able to know before it is conventional wisdom that that is where the market is going ... and knowing that you can get there first, get there with the best innovation."

With Windows 10, due to be released to the general public this summer, Microsoft is making a big gamble: that Windows can inject itself into every mobile device and every piece of software we use, through one operating system running apps developed for any device, all powered by Microsoft's cloud. The notion is a stark departure from what competitors Apple and Google, which have both drawn deep lines between mobile and desktop devices, have done with their respective platforms.

By 2018, Microsoft hopes to have more than 1 billion devices running Windows 10. That's ambitious, to say the least. Microsoft's previous operating system, Windows 8 runs on less than 15 percent of the world's computers and its smartphone counterpart powers only 2.8 percent of the world's smartphones. Those poor figures are the primary reason developers have lost interest with Windows, analysts say.

For Nadella, the future of Windows is a unified platform for which developers can write code that runs on a variety of gadgets, from Raspberry Pi microcomputers powering robots all the way up to game consoles and holographic headsets like Microsoft's HoloLens.

"The challenge Microsoft still has is they have to get a critical mass of apps," said Merv Adrian, a Gartner analyst. "They have a lot of catching up to do."

So far, Nadella has made a convincing argument to attract developers.

"In general, the pace [of change] has been extraordinary," said Adrian, who sees Microsoft as a far more open company today than in the past. "That message sits very well with the developers," he said, "who see themselves as having a much larger audience" than just the Windows platform.

Whether developers buy into that vision remains to be seen, but "enthusiasm in the room was palpable" during Nadella's keynote, Adrian noted.

Microsoft's HoloLens promises to change how we interact with computers, and it represents the company's vision for a Windows that can power any device.Microsoft

"Developers will be the deciding factor in the ultimate success of Nadella's 'mobile-first, cloud-first' vision," Geoff Blaber, vice president of Americas at CCS Insight, wrote in an analyst note following Nadella's keynote Wednesday. "Microsoft's strategy goes beyond Windows 10, but a successful launch and swift user adoption is crucial to create the foundation for Microsoft's business model transition."

At Build, Microsoft outlined how developers can beef up the Windows Phone platform, announcing tools to reuse Android and iOS code more easily. Now, instead of developing for each platform separately, app creators can convert software into the native languages of Apple and Google's platforms.

"The challenge Microsoft still has is they have to get a critical mass of apps. They have a lot of catching up to do."

Merv Adrian, Gartner analyst

It's a bold move, but not without its complications; developers may never make apps specifically with Windows in mind if they can simply move the software over after-the-fact. "The decision to embrace Android and iOS applications is an imperfect solution to an undesirable problem," Blaber noted. "Nonetheless, it's a necessary move to attract developers otherwise lost to Apple and Google."

Microsoft has also developed a modern Web browser, now officially called Edge, to which it has plugged in its most ambitious new features, like the Cortana data assistant that's powered through its Bing search engine. With Office 365, the company's flagship software now sold as an annual subscription service, Microsoft is creating a system for developers to plug in other apps and services. That may help key products like Word, Excel and PowerPoint become invaluable to how businesses do work rather than more costly alternatives to free software from Google and others.

With Windows 10 on the horizon, Microsoft's ambitions will be put to the test. The company is believed to have missed the ball on mobile and arrived late to the party with the cloud. Both represent two critical computing revolutions that are still defining how we work, play, entertain and create and have spelled the end for a number of once-powerful technology companies that failed to keep up.

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How to add more storage to an iOS device

How to add more storage to an iOS device

Can't fit all your music, movies, documents and other stuff? Before you spend money on a higher-capacity iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, read this.

Apple's iDevices famously -- make that infamously -- rely on fixed storage. If you need more space, well, too bad.

Granted, you can try a utility such as PhoneClean, which can reclaim some space, but it gets you only so far. For any kind of significant storage boost, you have little choice but to upgrade to a more capacious iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

Iogear

Actually, you do have one other option. A growing number of devices give you extra space for music, movies, photos, documents and other data, and some of them are surprisingly affordable.

I'm talking about wireless card readers (also known as media hubs), which connect via Wi-Fi to your iDevice. So instead of popping a microSD card inside your iPhone or iPad (which, alas, is impossible), you pop one into an external drive you can keep stowed in a bag, pocket or wherever.

Suppose, for example, you're taking a long trip. You want to bring along your entire music library -- not just the handful of playlists that fit on your 16GB iPad Mini -- and enough movies to last you through two or more long flights.

With one of these readers, you can stock, say, a 32GB SD card with more than enough songs and videos, while still leaving space on your Mini for apps and other stuff. And several models support USB flash drives as well, so if you have a few of those lying around, fill 'em with stuff!

In broad strokes, most of these devices work like this:

Step 1: Connect the reader to your PC, then fill it with any and all media/data you want to bring along.

Step 2: Install the companion app that goes with the reader.

Step 3: Run the app, then connect to the reader. Now you can stream your media, view your photos, access your documents, transfer files, and so on.

The RAVPower FileHub 5-in-1 is not only a wireless media hub, but also a portable power supply.RAVPower

One key feature to look for when shopping for a wireless reader is a pass-through option, which allows your device to stay connected to a Wi-Fi network while simultaneously connected to the reader. Otherwise it's a huge hassle to disconnect and reconnect all the time.

In the past I've tested a variety of these wireless media hubs, and there's one in particular that stands out: the RAVPower FileHub 5-in-1, which actually does a lot more than just sling media.

But let's start there: the FileHub will stream music, movies and the like from whatever you plug into it: an SD card (or microSD with adapter), a flash drive or even an external hard drive.

Beyond that, it offers both Wi-Fi hot-spot and NAS features, file transfers between storage and your devices and a 3,000mAh battery, which powers not only the FileHub itself, but also your device if it needs extra juice.

It's a bargain, too: the FileHub currently sells for $39.99 on Amazon.

By the way, if you need a lot of added space, a few companies offer wireless hard drives that work much the same way -- except now you're looking at up to a terabyte of mobile storage. However, these drives are heavier and bulkier, and they cost quite a bit more. One solid pick: the Patriot Aero.

In an ideal world, iDevices would have expansion slots. In this one, you can expand by way of external storage. All you need is a $40 accessory and some inexpensive memory cards/flash drives.

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