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.

Mac OS X Lion is a couple weeks old, and although I’m still a tad skeptical about the blending of the iPad and Mac operating systems, I’m trying my best to embrace the changes and new features.

But there’s one change that seems obvious to me, and I’m confused as to why Apple declined to make the switch in Lion.

I’m talking about the desktop.

Since the birth of modern operating systems, the desktop has served as the place for users to dump all the crap they need (and some they don’t). When you look at most people’s desktops, they’re cluttered with all sorts of icons for shortcuts, documents and poorly named folders.

The small screens of iPhones and iPads don’t have room for that kind of clutter, so Apple smartly left the desktop out of its iOS operating system and replaced it with a grid of app icons that serves as a program launcher.

That same idea made it into OS X Lion in the form of Launchpad – a very simple dock tool that takes over your entire desktop and displays the icons of your apps in an iPad-like grid.

Combine that with Apple’s big push for full-screen apps in Lion, and the desktop just seems unnecessary.

If I was the OS X team, I would have made the Launchpad grid the default function of the desktop and routed all file and folder management through the Finder.

The magic of the iPhone and iPad is their simplicity, and part of that is the ability to rearrange the homescreen and keep your device organized with so little effort. No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to make an iPhone screen look cluttered.

So why not bring the same level of simplicity to the Mac? Kill the idea of traditional icons on the desktop and make it the home of your wallpaper and nothing more. The current approach to the desktop is just an invitation for disorganization and confusion – two things that will lead users to detest their Mac instead of adoring it.

I demanded titillation, and Apple delivered. Let’s jump right into the highlights of Monday’s keynote announcement.

• iOS 5 stole the show. The look of the new notification system blew me away, and I love that Apple will be making the lock screen useful with widgets.

• Lion is enroute. The next version of Mac OS X was the only software product Apple discussed on Monday that will be available in the immediate future. Lion has an unspecific release date of “July” right now, will cost just $29 and be available only through the Mac App Store.

• Who needs a real digital camera? iOS 5 will make the iPhone’s camera even more convenient, adding a lock screen shortcut and giving you the option to take pictures with the volume button.

• The official Apple to-do list is here. For six years, I’ve begged for a native iOS task list program that syncs with MobileMe and iCal. It’s finally here with the Reminders app in iOS 5, and the way it was described in the keynote made it sound like Apple just invented the idea of a to-do list.

• Now you can actually find magazines! One of my other major complaints about the iOS ecosystem has been how difficult Apple makes it to find newspapers and magazines in the App Store – especially since the company markets the iPad as a news consumption device. iOS 5 adds a tool called Newsstand that partially fixes the problem by organizing your subscriptions in a central location.

• MobileMe is still barely alive. As I sort of predicted yesterday, Apple killed the MobileMe brand in favor of iCloud but held on to the @me.com domain for email addresses. It will create a little confusion, but there was no way the company could sell the public on @icloud.com addresses.

• Apple only wants to store some of your pictures. MobileMe has a gallery feature that lets you store and share photos online, and it sounds like it will be replaced by something in iCloud called Photo Stream. Pictures you take on your iPhone or iPad will automatically be uploaded to iCloud and simultaneously downloaded to your Macs. However, there are data restrictions on Photo Stream that make the service slightly less thrilling. Apple says it will only store your photos on iCloud for 30 days, which means you’ll still have to find other places to back up your picture libraries.

• iTunes was almost an afterthought. Experts and bloggers have been contemplating the idea of iTunes in the cloud for months and months. Then Monday arrived, and Steve Jobs spent literally five minutes of his presentation explaining how iCloud will handle music. The essence is this: you can now download iTunes purchases on as many devices as you want, but there are no subscription or streaming options, and you’ll have to pay $25 a year if you want iCloud to host non-iTunes songs.
  
  Personally, I was happy to not have the focus of iCloud be on the music factor. Until Apple goes after the Rdio/Spotify/Rhapsody model of subscriptions for unlimited music, there’s only so much value the cloud can add.

Don’t be upset. I know it’s June and you were certain Apple was going to announce an iPhone 5 this month (even though I warned you three months ago that it wasn’t gonna happen). But really – don’t be upset. Apple’s developer conference, known as WWDC, kicks off tomorrow with a Steve Jobs’ keynote presentation that is guaranteed to titillate the tech world.

Apple has confirmed that Monday’s announcements will be completely software-focused and will include details on Mac OS X Lion (the next operating system for desktops and laptops), iOS 5 (the next operating system for iPads and iPhones), and something called iCloud (the future of Apple’s web services).

Apple is a business juggernaut these days, and its success has always been directly related to an ability and willingness to innovate. Tomorrow will be a pivotal moment for Apple, as Jobs outlines a product strategy that could redefine the entire company. My enthusiasm for Apple has wavered over the past few years, but I fully expect to be wowed on Monday – like to serious pants-tent levels.

Here are a couple of specific things to look out for:

• Music in the cloud – The rumors indicate Apple is working on a music locker service that will let you store your iTunes library online and access it from anywhere. That poses a lot of questions. Will music be part of the larger iCloud service? Will there be a subscription option? Will it work with non-iTunes music as well? My biggest hope is that we’ll see a brand new version of iTunes that finally deals with how bloated the application has become.

• A true iOS upgrade – The consensus among experts is that iOS 5 will include a better notification system and support for dynamic widgets. I welcome both of those changes but am secretly hoping that Apple does something truly dazzling with the new version to further separate it from the competition.

• The future of MobileMe – Will the introduction of iCloud kill the MobileMe brand? I was never a huge fan of the name MobileMe, but I think I’d much prefer my @me.com email address over an @icloud.com one.

• Prices – Charging $99 a year for MobileMe was laughable. I know this because I paid $99 a year for it, and people frequently laughed at me. The media and public’s reaction to iCloud will be heavily dependent on the pricing structure, and it will also be interesting to see if Apple decides to give away the iOS and OS X upgrades for free.

• Dates – While Apple will have plenty to announce on Monday, it does not necessarily mean all of the new software will be available starting this week. A September official launch is more likely, and you really can’t argue with that – considering Apple is competing with companies that tend to announce products 12 months ahead of time and sometimes don’t even bother to deliver them at all.

I think the most amazing part of tomorrow’s keynote might be how Jobs manages to discuss all of these topics without letting the event run over 90 minutes. And with all that juicy stuff to cover, I doubt anyone will be able to complain about the lack of an iPhone 5.

The biggest drawback to almost every smartphone on the market these days is battery life. Heavy mobile users are lucky if they can get through an entire day without having to plug in to an outlet.

But according to a group of Korean researchers, there may someday be alternative methods for charging electronics. They’ve been focused on one method that is extra alternative: noise. These researchers have discovered that sound waves can actually generate electrical currents powerful enough to recharge a battery.

So that means down the road, you could theoretically charge your smartphone’s battery without wires or an outlet - just noise. The Korean study suggests harnessing power from outdoor sounds like city traffic, but I think Americans will find even more effective ways to use the technology.

It will certainly be embraced by parents who cannot get their offspring to shut up. Instead of getting frustrated by their children’s incessant screaming, parents will be able to get satisfaction from knowing that at least their cell phone will be fully charged when the tantrum finally ends.

Maybe I’m just naive, but I dream of the day when this country can end its reliance on nuclear energy and instead power the entire nation on children’s screams and endless rants by Fox News hosts.