If you’re like us, you probably got a shiny new smartphone or tablet for the holidays. Here are our tips for keeping that device looking brand new, and few ideas for what you can do with your old one.

Protect Your New Device

An iPhone 4 in an Otterbox Impact case. Image credit: gisuser / Flickr

The first thing you should do with your new device is put a case on it. We can’t stress how important this is. It breaks our hearts to see people with gadgets that came out not even a month ago, and they’ve already broken the screen.

There are a ton of different kinds of cases out there. If you’re really concerned about protecting your device, we recommend a hefty case from companies like Otterbox, Lifeproof or Griffin. Both brands offer cases that are rated for protecting against drops from normal heights and have material to keep your screen scratch-free. Some of them even claim to be waterproof.

If you don’t want to hide your fancy new smartphone or tablet, a number of companies sell thin, clear plastic cases. These will not offer the same level of protection as an Otterbox case, but they will be better than nothing. Look around online or head to pretty much any store that sells electronics to find one that best fits your needs.

If you decide not to get a case (or even if you do), you should seriously consider buying an extended warranty for your device. For most electronics, we don’t feel like extended warranties are worth the money. However, they are a godsend for smartphones, especially if they cover accidents

Whether you get an extended warranty or not, take the time right now to figure out how long your warranty will last. A year is pretty standard for a new smartphone, but be sure to double check. It also helps to mark that date on your calendar or set a reminder. If your device starts acting funny, you can make sure to get it taken care of before that timer runs out.

With a good warranty, the device maker will often send you a new one before you mail back your old one so that you don’t have to be device-less for any longer than necessary.

What to Do With Your Old One

If you’re not planning to keep your old smartphone or tablet as a backup or for archival purposes, you should consider selling it or recycling it.

To get the best price, you’ll want to sell it on Craigslist or eBay. The downside to Craigslist is that you have to meet strangers from the internet in real-life. The downside the eBay is that you have to go to Post Office or the UPS store. You can try searching through other auctions and online for a good idea of how much your device is worth in the condition it is in.

If you have a fairly new gadget like an iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy 4, you could also check out places like Amazon and Gazelle. They will buy your phone online and pay you fast. Or you can trade in your iPhone at the Apple Store, Best Buy, Game Stop and Target. You won’t get as much selling your iPhone or Android phone to the big companies, but you’ll get rid of it fast and get your money fast. So, if convenience is what matters to you, that’s the route we would go.

If you have a smartphone that you think is too old to sell, or you just want to do something nice for others, there are a lot of charitable organizations that can make good use of your old device.

If your phone can at least still make phone calls, you can drop it off at any Verizon Wireless store and they will get it into the hands of someone who needs it. Through their program HopeLine, they collect phones and give them to victims of domestic abuse.

If your phone is completely dead, there are charities that accept electronics that can recycle them and get money to go towards their efforts. As always, make sure that you trust the charity you are giving to.

Also, many cities have e-waste recycling centers for computers and other electronics. Try looking on your city’s website to see if there is one near you.

No matter what you decide to do with your old device, you need to make sure you wipe its memory and reset it to factory default if possible. The last thing you want is for your personal information to fall into the wrong hands. Your device should have come with instructions on how to reset it. We’ve got full details on how to do it for iPhones, iPads and Android phones in this article.

Every once in a while we like to take a few minutes to cover something everyone should know. This time, we want to talk about the website everyone loves to hate… Facebook!

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

If you are honest with yourself, you are probably on Facebook because it is kind of unavoidable, but you don’t love it. A lot of time it’s just full of stuff you don’t care about, like that friend-of-a-friend who posts a dozen posts a day about her dog, or your high school friend who is always starting political arguments.

But the fact is that you have more control over what you see on your Facebook feed then you think you do. There are things you can do to greatly improve that. And there are some ways that you can make sure that when you post something, it gets noticed.

Before we dive in, let’s explain what we mean when we say “Facebook feed”. Basically, we are just talking about the homepage of Facebook, where you see all the updates from friends and from pages you?ve liked. That is referred to as the “news feed” or just the “feed” for short.

The Facebook feed doesn’t show you EVERYTHING your friends post, however. Most people on Facebook have 300 or more friends, and if you saw everything every single one of them liked or posted you would be swamped with information. So Facebook employs an algorithm to decide what to show you.

The real question is how this algorithm works. The actual algorithm is top secret, but just from experimenting around with Facebook we know a lot about it. The Facebook algorithm is more likely to show you stuff from people it thinks you care about and from pages it thinks you really like.

Every time you like a post or comment on something someone wrote or visit someone’s profile, Facebook notices that, and it will start to move that person higher up in your feed. So if you’re always checking out someone?s profile, Facebook will show you more posts by that person.

Some people have said that Facebook knows that two people will start dating several days before it actually happens, supposedly because those people will start liking and commenting on each other’s posts much more frequently. Now, we don’t know if the secret algorithm really knows, that, but it feels like this would be the case . The more you interact with someone, the more Facebook knows that you like that person and want to see more posts by them.

Okay, but what if there?s someone who you really don?t want to see in your feed that much? Is there anything you can do?

Absolutely. A lot of people don’t realize this, but you can explicitly tell Facebook that you don’t want to see a post. You can try this out yourself by bringing up the Facebook home page on your web browser. Pick a post in your feed. At the top right of that post there should be a faint gray down arrow. You might have to hover over the post to see it if you?re on a computer. Click it.

You will get a pop-up with some options like ?I don?t want to see this,? and ?Report this.? Click ?I don?t want to see this.? Don?t worry if you actually do want to see it, on a computer you can undo your choices.

Now it should say that the post is hidden, and there should be a link asking you why you don?t want to see it. Click the link. You will see the options, ?It?s annoying or not interesting,? ?I?m in this photo and I don?t like it,? ?This shouldn?t be on Facebook? and ?This is spam.? Clicking any of those will give Facebook some useful information about what you want to see in your feed – and what you don’t want to see. Now if you click out of that box and then click “undo” in the gray box that tells you the post is hidden you will get that post back.

There’s another trick you can try also. Do you feel like many of your Facebook “friends” are more like “acquaintances”? You can tell Facebook that. Just over to a friend’s profile on Facebook. Up at the top you will see the “Friends” button – click that. In the drop down that pops up you should see the word “acquaintances”. If you click it, it will add this profile to a special friends list called “acquaintances”.

Acquaintances are still friends in Facebook?s world, but Facebook won?t show you very many posts by acquaintances. In fact, it will only show you posts by them that either have a lot of comments or that are about major life events. So if you made someone an acquaintance then you’d see if they got engaged or got a new job, but you wouldn’t see the three posts they made about what they had for lunch yesterday.

Before we go any further we should mention one important thing about your feed. You may have noticed that your feed isn’t strictly chronological. Stuff your partner or best friends post stays at the top of the feed for a day or two sometimes.

If you want to see a more chronological view of your feed, you can click the down arrow next to “news feed” in the bar on the left of the page, and then select “most recent”. That will make your news feed more or less ordered by date rather than how much the algorithm thinks you like stuff.

We should mention that if you are in the Facebook app on a tablet or smartphone, you won’t have this option. Actually, the app has a lot fewer options in general. So if something we’re talking about here isn’t working for you on the app, you may need to log in to Facebook on your home PC to change it.

Alright, time to get down to brass tacks. How do you make “the algorithm” show your friends YOUR posts? How can you be Facebook cool?

Well there’s no sure-fire way to be the most popular kid on the news feed, but we know that there are some things that Facebook likes and that it will factor in when deciding whether or not to show your posts to your friends. Facebook likes posts with pictures and links more than posts that are just updates. So if you link to a website or post a pic, you’re more likely to get noticed. The exception, of course, is if you post a link or a picture that people don’t like. Remember we talked about how you can hide posts? If a lot of people are hiding something you posted, Facebook is likely to downgrade that post. So you want to steer away from controversial topics if your main concern is Facebook popularity.

For instance, cute animals are always a big hit. Facebook also loves “positive” posts. It probably searches posts for keywords like “happy”, “engaged”, “married”, “pregnant”, “kitty”, “love” and so on. Facebook likes happy posts because they are more likely to be shared. Happy links are more likely to be clicked on. And when people click links, Facebook is usually making money.

So if you’re happy and you know it, tell Facebook!

Following these tips will give you much more control over your Facebook feed. More control, but not complete control. At the end of the day, the secret Facebook algorithm is still deciding what it thinks you should see. You may be wondering, is there a way tiycan have total control over my news feed?

There is only one we know of: switch to Twitter.

Have you ever noticed things are bigger or smaller on other people’s computer screens even though they have the same size monitor you do? Your monitor’s screen resolution settings determines how large text and images appear on screen. Screen resolutions are measured in pixels, literally the dots that form to make letters and graphics on your screen. The more dots you have in the picture, the better the picture looks. The native resolution is the highest resolution your monitor can support. So, if your monitor supports up to 1920 by 1200, that is its native resolution. The native resolution is the setting that your computer is going to look the best at because it is showing the image exactly the way it was made, pixel for pixel. When you set the resolution to a lower setting, the computer has to do some complicated math to make it look like it is supposed to. Based on the setting you choose, it may have to make 2 pixels for each real pixel, 3 pixels, 4 pixels etc. When your video card has to calculate fractions of pixels to make the resolution work, the image gets blurry and uncomfortable to use.

If the text and graphics on your screen is too small or too large to view comfortably or appears stretched or blurry, you can change the resolution by following these instructions for Windows XP. 

1. Right click on an empty area of your desktop and select Properties in the context menu.
2. The Display Properties window will open. Click on the Settings tab.
3. Move the Screen resolution slider to change the resolution of your monitor.
4. To test a setting, Click the Apply button. The screen will go blank for a moment and a message will appear asking if you want to keep the setting.
5. Click the OK button to close the window and apply the setting.

Moving it towards Less increases the size of text and images on the display but you will see less information on screen. Moving it towards More will allow you to view more information on screen but text and images will appear smaller. Some resolutions may appear to be stretched out or blurry so you may want to try a few out. You can always go back and change it again. The display will produce an optimal image when the slider is all the way over to the More side. This is the “native resolution” of the monitor.

Here are links with the instructions on how to change your screen resolution in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Mac OS X 10.4 through Mountain Lion. Wondering why I didn’t include a link for instructions for iOS, Android and Chrome? It’s simple. There aren’t instructions for those operating systems, because you can’t change the screen resolution in them unless you jailbreak, root, or hack them.

Today we’re starting a new regular feature on Deemable Tech called Tech Tip Tuesday. Every week, (or roughly every week) we’ll bring you a quick tip that will make your life with technology easier. Now, if you are a power user, these tips might be below your grade level. Don’t let that stop you from at least taking a glance each week. Chances are they’ll be a few that even you didn’t know about, every now and then.

Today’s Tech Tip Tuesday is a very simple trick that will make your life easier, especially if you have to search through long documents or websites in your job. Have you ever found yourself scanning a website, but you can’t seem to find the sentence that you are looking for? The next time that happens to you, press the Control button on your keyboard which is usually labeled “Ctrl”, then, while you are still holding that button down, press the F key. If you are in Internet Explorer, a menu like the following will appear:

Conveniently, your cursor will move to the “Find:” field. Type a word or short phrase that you know is in the sentence that you are looking for. For example, let’s say you were reading an article about the iPhone 5, and you wanted to find the part where the author talked about the new Lightning connector. You could press Ctrl-F and search for the word “lightning.”

The web browser will automatically take you to the first instance of the word, or phrase, in the article, and it will tell you how many times the word appears in the article. It will also highlight every instance of the word in the article so you can find them visually. You can click the Next button to take you to the next instance, or the Previous button to take you to the last instance.

If you type in a word or phrase that doesn’t appear in the article, either because the word isn’t actually in the article or you misspelled it, the Find menu will say, “No options found.” Make sure that you are spelling the word correctly, or try a different word.

This tip works on all current web browsers, and on most other Windows and Mac programs. On the iPhone you can do the same thing in Safari by typing the word you are looking for in the Search field at the top, then scrolling to the bottom of the suggested searches. Tap the last option under the heading labeled “On This Page.”

Try this tip out the next time you are searching for something on a long website. It’ll save you a lot of time.

Did this Tech Tip help you? Have a suggestion for a future Tech Tip Tuesday? Let us know in the comments down below!