In the second half of last year, I stopped blogging about technology on a regular basis and spent more time focusing on other writing projects. I know it was hard on all of you. Computers and the Internet are scary things, and you probably feel lost right now.

To help get you back on track, here are five tips geared towards embracing technology in the new year. And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter to catch all of my mini-rants on the latest tech news and developments.

1. Give streaming music a shot

I gave up iTunes for Lent last year and haven’t looked back since signing up for an Rdio subscription. I pay $9.99 per month and stream albums to my Mac and iPhone all day long.

The only hiccup in the growth of streaming music services has been the recent trend of bands (Coldplay, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys) withholding their new releases from Rdio and Spotify. It’s a messy situation, because these artists feel like streaming music is killing their industry, and meanwhile, Rdio and Spotify have almost no hope of becoming profitable thanks to the demands of the music labels.

My advice is this: if you are near a computer for most of your day, use Rdio or Spotify as your personal jukebox and as a way to explore new artists and albums. If you feel guilty about shortchanging your favorite bands and singers, then pay for the album on iTunes or, even better, pick up a copy from your local music seller.

2. Move your documents to Dropbox

I always thought of Dropbox as nothing more than a flash drive in the sky. Sure, it would let me store up to 2 GB of data online and give me access to it from anywhere – but I could already do that with Apple’s iDisk service or even just by emailing files to myself.

Then iCloud launched, essentially killing iDisk, and I took that as a sign to give Dropbox a try. I quickly discovered that the service is much more than just an online flash drive. Because of its desktop client for Macs and PCs, Dropbox can replace the need for storing files on your local computer. The magic of Dropbox is that your files are available whether or not you are connected to the Internet - and the syncing to your cloud storage is done entirely in the background.

As I mentioned before, Dropbox gives you 2 GB of storage space for free and offers paid plans for more gigabytes. I suggest you start with the free package and use it for your text documents, spreadsheets and presentations (music, video and pictures take up too much space). Dropbox will sync your data across all of your devices so that you never have to worry about manually transferring files or accidentally editing the wrong version of a document.

3. Get your Twitter life under control

The first step to getting your Twitter life under control is to comb through your timeline and unfollow all the accounts that you do not consider essential. Obviously everyone tweets at different rates, but I estimate that following any more than 100 accounts is dangerous (and yes, I’m currently breaking my own rule).

Then take all those people who you considered non-essential but are still interested in and filter them into Twitter lists based on their category, profession or whatever the hell you want. I currently have five Twitter lists set up to complement my main timeline: News, Tech, Sports, Local and Companies. Also, consider migrating any RSS feeds that you still check into Twitter lists.

Treat your lists as news tickers that you quickly scroll through when you have a free minute. But be careful about adding too many news sites and blogs to your Twitter lists, since their nonstop tweeting can quickly become overwhelming. And no matter what, DO NOT attempt to read every tweet from your main timeline and all of your Twitter lists. Trust me, I’ve tried it – and the journey back from Internet Addiction Disorder is a long one.

4. Cleanse your devices

Take a look at the icons on your smartphone. Do you still use or need all of those apps? What about the downloads folder on your laptop? Are you saving those dancing cat GIFs for a special occasion?

It’s easy for your digital devices to get cluttered. Why not try to reverse that trend in 2012?

Go through your phone and delete the apps, messages and contacts you don’t need anymore. Then sift through the folders on your computer, removing unnecessary files and transferring stuff that can be archived to an external hard drive.

If you are feeling really adventurous, format your computer or mobile device and force yourself to start from scratch. (Just make sure you back up all your data beforehand.) You’ll feel more organized, and your gadgets will probably run faster too.

5. Pick a new password right now

Look, I know changing passwords is a pain in the butt. I picked a password for my first AOL screen name in sixth grade, used it for just about every site and service I signed up for over the next decade, and didn’t come up with a new one until I graduated from college.

To be extra careful with your online security, you should really use a different password for each site or application and change them up every few months. But that’s a lot to ask, so I suggest starting with my approach: choose a new password at the beginning of every January and then devote a few hours to updating the credentials for all your online accounts. As the year goes on, keep a running list of every site that you create an account on, and that will help make the annual password change a little bit easier.

I came across a tweet yesterday that really baffled me. It was posted by the iTunes Music Store account on Twitter and said the following:

“Heartless Empire” by @Broken_Bells is available for full stream on Ping. Their new EP comes out tomorrow.

When I saw the words “full stream” mentioned in an official tweet by Apple employees, an alarm went off in my head – specifically the alarm that goes off when something sounds so crazy that you assume it must be a mistake because otherwise it means you’re the crazy one.

Didn’t the last reports say Apple was definitely not considering the idea of music streaming? Wasn’t that the whole reason I gave up iTunes for Lent and adopted a brand new baby called Rdio? Could one meaningless tweet actually drive me to the brink of insanity?

My mental state has calmed a bit since then, although I still think there is a story buried somewhere in that tweet. The post was referring to the fact that iTunes users could temporarily listen to a single Broken Bells song on Ping until the band’s EP was officially released. The announcement should have been insignificant for two reasons:

1. Ping already lets artists share videos and pictures with their fans. A single song should be no different.

2. No one uses Ping anyways.

But I’m still left confused. The Broken Bells situation proves that not only is Apple capable of building a music streaming service, they sort of already have it in place. So then why wouldn’t Apple want to pursue an iTunes subscription plan? It seems like a no-brainer, and Apple’s resistance is especially odd now that companies like Rdio have proven that the big record labels are willing to license music for those kinds of services.

I finally decided to give streaming music a try last week after I heard that Rdio (don’t ask me how to pronounce it) was releasing a Mac desktop client. Recently I’ve been looking for ways to break my iTunes addiction, but services like Pandora and Grooveshark don’t work for me because I hate having to keep a web browser open in order to listen to music.

After just a couple days, I’m proud to say that my exorbitant music spending is a thing of the past, because Rdio has officially replaced iTunes on my dock.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how the Rdio service works. By signing up for a $9.99 monthly subscription, you get unlimited music streaming to your computers and mobile devices. When browsing or searching through the Rdio catalog of tunes, you add albums to your “collection” and can build playlists that are synced with the cloud. If you are getting on a plane or heading to an area without a network connection, you can temporarily download content to your phone for offline playback.

Now those things are all nice, but they’re worthless unless the service has the music you want to listen to. I was pretty skeptical about Rdio’s catalog since there is so much talk in the tech world about the trouble Spotify is having while trying to secure deals with all the major record labels. However, I am overly impressed by what Rdio has to offer. The numbers don’t lie: I had music from 150 artists in my iTunes library, and Rdio had 143 of them available for immediate streaming. That’s over 95 percent. The Rdio Mac app even has a cool feature that will automatically go through your iTunes library and add the matching content to your online collection.

Obviously, not everyone is going to have the same level of success with Rdio’s catalog as I did (especially if you listen to more obscure artists). That’s why I suggest that, if you are looking to wean yourself off of iTunes like me, sign up for the Rdio seven-day free trial just to see how much of your current library is available.

I knew I had made the right choice to switch to Rdio when I looked at my iTunes shopping cart. The six albums in it would have cost me $62 from Apple’s service. They’re all available on Rdio right now, and I’ll be listening to them for the rest of the month for just $10.