Mark A. Kellner

KELLNER: Two extra days for tax prep, but time to get serious

Procrastinators across the land get a break this year: Tax filing day is April 17. It's normally the 15th, but that falls on a Sunday this year. The next day is Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia and Patriots' Day in Massachusetts. So, we all get 48 more hours to sweat over our returns.

April 4, 2012

KELLNER: Don’t forget accessories after the fact

It's a funny thing about tech devices: Whether it's a smartphone, a tablet, or even a desktop or notebook computer, leaving any of these truly "naked" isn't a wise strategy.

March 28, 2012

KELLNER: ‘New’ iPad a stunning, paradoxical improvement

The reported first-weekend sales of 1 million units of the "new" Apple iPad leave little doubt that this product, the third in the series, is going to be successful. (AT&T Wireless, in a nebulous one-sentence announcement, said it sold the most iPads it ever did for an opening day, but a spokesman refused to flesh out that claim.)

March 21, 2012

Historic black church faces foreclosure from minority-owned bank

In a dispute that some are calling a modern-day updating of the biblical Parable of the Ungrateful Servant, a minority-owned bank that benefited from federal bailout funds is threatening to foreclose on one of the nation’s oldest black churches.

March 18, 2012

KELLNER: Microsoft’s big challenge ahead

A two-day forced vacation from the MacBook Pro I normally use during work hours, necessitated by a logic board replacement, forced me to turn instead to a Hewlett-Packard notebook computer running Microsoft Windows.

March 14, 2012

KELLNER: Nook Tablet shows promise in crowded market

Apple's announcement Wednesday of a new iPad only continues questions about that device's place in the market. By the end of 2012, Apple is expected to rack up cumulative iPad sales of more than 100 million units. An observer might conclude that the iPad is about all there is in tablet-land.

March 7, 2012

KELLNER: Yes, your iPad can run Microsoft Windows 7

Forget the cant of computing purists: Something has changed in the space-time continuum and Microsoft Windows 7 now runs, quite happily, on an Apple iPad tablet.

February 29, 2012

KELLNER: Samsung Galaxy Note lives up to its name as notable ‘phablet’

Spend $299 and commit to a two-year AT&T wireless contract and you can get a Samsung Galaxy Note, a 6.28 ounce smartphone with a tablet screen larger than an iPhone and sharper than, well, possibly your high-definition TV at home. But before you short your Apple shares, keep reading.

February 22, 2012

KELLNER: Finding answers in ‘plain language’ when technology has you stumped

Are you flummoxed by today's computer technology? You're not alone, if my email inbox is any indication. And while such perplexity has been around since the dawn of the personal computer era in the very late 1970s, today's dilemmas are at once new and familiar.

February 15, 2012

KELLNER: Printer from HP for a professional home office

Hewlett Packard continues to refine and even perfect the small-office/home office/cubicle printer, especially when it comes to the inkjet side of things. Unlike color laser printers, which are nice but have a fairly high cost for consumables, inkjets are often half as expensive in per-page printing costs, with little discernable difference in output quality.

February 8, 2012

KELLNER: Improving the TV-to-computer connection

If you have more house than cable TV outlets, or if you simply must watch "Judge Judy" or a Washington Nationals game out on the deck using a tablet computer, a small $179 device could make your life a whole lot easier.

February 1, 2012

KELLNER: Database-extracting software aids law enforcement in real time

If there's one thing a police officer or state trooper needs for self-protection and to do the job, it is information that is accurate and quickly available in the field.

January 25, 2012

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Tyndale’

If you're not familiar with the work of William Tyndale, you should be. Even today, English speakers owe a debt to the man martyred at age 42 for the "heretical" act of translating the Bible into English.

January 20, 2012

KELLNER: ‘Too good to be true’ online offer likely is

If your email address becomes somewhat widely known, you'll probably receive junk emails, also known as "spam." Most of these are easy to dismiss, and many are caught in spam filters provided by our employers or email service providers.

January 18, 2012

KELLNER: A smart(phone) solution to organizing business cards

A reader (and friend) in Vienna asked if I had any favorites among business-card-reading software for a smartphone.

January 11, 2012

KELLNER: Senior users: A highly neglected but possibly fruitful market

Here's a potentially hot market for computer and software makers, if they can best figure out how to serve it: The 40.2 million Americans older than 65, representing 13 percent of the population, according to a May 2011 brief from the U.S. Census Bureau.

January 4, 2012

KELLNER: The tech year we’re leaving behind

Almost nothing that happened in 2011 in the tech world came as expected, perhaps more so than any other year your columnist can recall. As with so many people in so many spheres, I believe the tech community will not beg for a repeat of the year now ending.

December 28, 2011

KELLNER: Some last-minute gifts, even for yourself

Christmas comes but once a year, the saying goes, and this year it's on the sixth day of Hanukkah. This means there are plenty of gift shoppers out there, and as the clock ticks down, panic may set in.

December 21, 2011

Gadgets & Gizmos Gift Guide

It's a given that the holidays mean different things to different people: family gatherings, memories of days gone by, hopes for the future and perhaps all of these. One element held in common — at least for many of us — is the desire to enjoy music and video entertainment at home and while traveling.

December 15, 2011