With smart phones slowly but surely taking over the cell phone market, more people are browsing the web using iPhones and Android-based devices all the time. I absolutely love my aging Samsung Moment, but I have to admit that the clunky web browser that it came with is horrible. In a nutshell, it’s SLOW! Well, I finally decided to do something about it.

After reading a couple of rave reviews touting the speed and usability improvements of the Opera Mini mobile web browser, I took the plunge and downloaded it the other night. Guess what? The reviews were right on the money. This little jewel virtually transformed my Moment from a snail into a gazelle! Pages that used to take a minute or longer to load via 3G now take seconds! I simply can’t believe the difference it made.

Of course 3G is 3G, and nothing you can install onto a smart phone is going to make it any faster. Opera Mini takes the brakes off the browsing experience by first loading the web pages you wish to view onto a back-end server, then transmitting a highly compressed version of those pages to the phone over the 3G network. Fewer bytes transmitted means less time required to receive the page. The setup is pure genius if you ask me.

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If you’re a webmaster or blogger who participates in the Google Adsense program, you probably check your Adsense stats several times a day. And if you’re like me, you probably check them fairly often on your smart phone. If so, don’t you just hate having to navigate the reports pages on that little screen?

Well, no more! Google has developed a great new Adsense interface for the iPhone and Android-based smart phones that provides a simple, easy to read (and easy to navigate) mobile interface. I tried it for the first time last night and I really like it a lot. Best of all, you don’t have to download an app. All you have to do is switch to the new desktop Adsense interface in your control panel, then every time you log in from your smart phone you’ll be presented with the new mobile interface by default. Give it a try. I think you’ll like it.

To be sure, the power supply is one of the most critical components inside your PC’s case. In fact, when the power supply quits working everything else quits working right along with it. If you suspect that the power supply in your PC might be defective, this article will explain how to replace it with a new one.

First, you need to determine if the power supply is indeed defective. Without a power supply tester or enough knowledge to be able to check one with a voltmeter, there is no way to be absolutely certain that the power supply is really bad – but you can get a pretty good idea. Here’s a quick and dirty test:

1 – Is the power supply’s fan running? If not, verify that the computer is plugged in to a working electrical outlet and turned on. If the PC is getting power but the fan isn’t turning that’s the first clue that the power supply might be defective.

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USB hard drives are wonderful devices. You simply connect the drive to an unused USB port, then use it just like any other hard drive. When you’re done you can disconnect it and take it with you. You can then use it again later on a different PC. What a great way to share files between a desktop and notebook computer!

With capacities soaring and prices at an all-time low, it’s hard to find a computer user anywhere who still doesn’t own at least one USB hard disk drive. But some of them are running into a small, but very irritating problem: Some older computers won’t boot up into Windows while a USB drive is attached to the machine. Luckily, there is a very simple fix…

If your PC fails to start up with a USB hard drive attached, enter the BIOS Settings screen and disable the feature known as “USB Legacy Device Support”. The procedure for entering the BIOS Setup screen varies from PC to PC, but it usually involves pressing a designated key such as Esc or F10 just as the computer begins the boot-up process.

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Well, we all knew it was just a matter of time before some hacker managed to create and distribute a virus targeting Android smart phones, and now it has happened.

The “DroidDream” is a malware program disguised in the form of various seemingly innocent downloads. But once downloaded and installed on an Android phone, it sends all of the owner’s personal information back to the hacker. Nasty stuff.

As with your PC, it’s important to install a good anti-virus application on your smart phone. It’s equally important to be extremely careful about which apps you download onto your phone. I suggest limiting your downloads to established and trusted files only.

It seems that the hackers of the world are always out to exploit the latest technology. And since smart phones are actually tiny computer systems, they’re a natural target for mischief. Now that the first Android virus has made its way into the wild, plenty more are sure to follow.

About the author: Sean Miller is a self-admitted “tech geek” and author.

Credits: Photo courtesy of Verizon Wireless.