Friday 30 August 2019

Geek Trivia: Famed Psychologist B.F. Skinner Once Taught Pigeons To?

Famed Psychologist B.F. Skinner Once Taught Pigeons To?

  1. Play the National Anthem
  2. Play Ping-Pong
  3. Use Morse Code
  4. Count Cards

Think you know the answer?



Source: How-To Geek

How to Turn Off FaceTime on Your iPhone, iPad, and Mac

How to Use Chrome’s Built-In Task Manager

Task Manager

Most operating systems have a built-in task manager or resource monitor that lets you see all active processes and programs running on your computer. The Chrome web browser also has one that helps you end troublesome tabs and extensions.

Open Chrome’s Task Manager

To open Chrome’s Task Manager, click the “More” button (three dots), hover over “More Tools,” and then click on “Task Manager.” Alternatively, press Shift+Esc on Windows or Search+Esc on Chrome OS to open Task Manager.

Click the three dots, hover the mouse over "More Tools," and then click on "Task Manager" to open Task Manager.

With Chrome’s Task Manager now open, you can see a list of all tabs, extensions, and processes currently running in the browser.

When Task Manager opens, a list of all the tabs, extensions, and processes currently running in Chrome appear in the list.

End Troublesome Processes

You can end any of the processes from this menu, which can be helpful when an extension or tab stops responding. To do this, click on the process and then select “End Process.”

Click on a process, and then click "End Process" to kill the process.

You can kill more than one process at a time by holding down the Shift or Ctrl key (Command on Mac), highlighting multiple items from the list, and then hitting the “End Process” button.

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Source: How-To Geek

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How to Copy and Paste on a Chromebook

Chromebook copy and paste logo

Should you need to copy text from one document into another, don’t worry. Copying and pasting on a Chromebook works identically to how it works on any other operating system, and you can do it in a couple of ways.

How to Copy Text

The first thing you want to do is open up a document or webpage and highlight the word(s) or line(s) you want to copy. Right-click the selection—either with two fingers on a trackpad, with a mouse, or by pressing Alt while clicking—and then click “Copy.”

Highlight some text, right-click it, and then click "Copy."

RELATED: How to Right-Click on a Chromebook

Alternatively, instead of using the right-click context menu, you can press Ctrl+C to copy the highlighted text to the clipboard.

Tip: If you want to altogether remove text from a document while copying it to the clipboard, click “Cut” from the context menu or press Ctrl+X instead.

How to Paste Text

Now that you have text copied to the clipboard, open up a document, word processor, or text box (such as Chrome’s address bar) to paste it into place. Click the mouse cursor where you want to paste the text, right-click, and then select “Paste” from the context menu that appears.

Go to the document you want to paste the text, right-click, and then click "Paste."

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Source: How-To Geek

Logitech Harmony Express Review: Easy to Set Up, Sometimes Annoying to Use

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Thursday 29 August 2019

Geek Trivia: The First Wearable Computer Was Used For What?

The First Wearable Computer Was Used For What?

  1. Media Playback
  2. Heads-Up Displays
  3. Text-to-Speech
  4. Gambling

Think you know the answer?



Source: How-To Geek

Windows 10’s Tablet Mode May Be Replaced With the Desktop

How to Quickly Switch Between Gmail Accounts on Android, iPhone, and iPad

How to Unlock Read-Only PowerPoint Presentations

powerpoint logo

If you want unrestricted editorial rights to a read-only PowerPoint presentation, then you have to unlock it. The good news is that you can open it in a few simple clicks. Here’s how.

Unlock a Read-Only Presentation

There are two ways to tell if a presentation is a read-only file. The first is if you see the words “Read-Only” after the title of the presentation. The second is if you see a yellow message bar across the top of a presentation with a message letting you know the document has limited access.

Next to the yellow banner message will be a button that reads “Edit Anyway.” Click that button to unlock the PowerPoint.

Edit anyways

The yellow bar should disappear along with the “Read-Only” text that appeared after the presentation title. Your PowerPoint will now be editable.

presentation title

As the saying goes, there’s more than one way to cook an egg. The same applies to unlocking a presentation. Although this method involves a few extra steps, we wouldn’t be real geeks if we didn’t show you how.

First, open the read-only presentation and select the  “File” tab.

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Source: How-To Geek

How to Take a Photo on a Chromebook

Camera App Chrome OS

Your Chromebook comes equipped with a built-in camera you can use to snap pictures to post to your social media accounts or share with friends and family. Here’s how to take a photo on a Chromebook.

How to Take a Photo

Google recently rolled out Chrome OS 76 stable, which came with a bunch of new features such as Virtual Desks and a redesign of the Camera app. Google moved the position of the shutter button and camera mode, added a landscape mode, and implemented some much-needed improvements to shutter speed.

For this tutorial, we will use the stock Chromebook camera app, though you can use any camera app from the Play Store that you prefer.

First, open the Camera app on your Chromebook. You’ll find it under the launcher menu. Tap the “Search” button on the keyboard and search for “Camera.” Alternatively, click the “All Apps” button and look for the camera icon.

Tap the Search button, then type Camera to find the Camera app

Once the app opens, click the shutter button, located on the right side, to snap a picture.

Click the shuter icon to snap a pic.

By default, the photo is taken in landscape orientation. However, if you click “Square” before the shutter button, your photos will be square in shape with equal portrait and landscape dimensions.

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Source: How-To Geek

The RAVPower 500GB Mini SSD Is a Small Encrypted Powerhouse

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Wednesday 28 August 2019

Geek Trivia: Which Drink Is, Thanks To Federal Law, Now Artificially Flavored?

Which Drink Is, Thanks To Federal Law, Now Artificially Flavored?

  1. 7-Up
  2. Shasta
  3. Coca-Cola
  4. Root Beer

Think you know the answer?



Source: How-To Geek

How to Embed Podcasts in PowerPoint

powerpoint logo

Embedding an informational podcast in your PowerPoint can be an invaluable way to enhance a presentation. Here’s how to add podcasts to your slideshow from your computer or from the web.

Embedding Downloaded Podcasts from Your Computer

When you think podcast, you might think of an audio presentation that’s stored on the internet. However, podcasts are simply audio files, so if the show is downloaded onto your computer, the process is as simple as uploading music to PowerPoint.

Note: If you don’t have the podcast’s audio file, you can skip to the next section where we show you how to embed a podcast you find on the web.

RELATED: How to Get Started Listening to Podcasts

Open PowerPoint and navigate to the slide in which you would like to embed the podcast. Next, select the “Insert” tab and, in the “Media” group, click “Audio.” A drop-down menu will appear. Here, choose “Audio on My PC.”

Insert Audio from PC

The “Insert Audio” window will appear. Navigate to the location of the podcast, pick the audio file, then choose “Insert.”

Select Podcast to Insert

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Source: How-To Geek

Fitbit Is Getting Ready to Make All of Your Health Data a Lot More Useful

Never Run Out of Household Essentials by Restocking Like a Business

If you find yourself perpetually out of paper towels, dish soap, or other household essentials, why not steal a simple inventory management trick from the business world?

Do you know what your local grocer doesn’t do? They don’t wait until someone has purchased the last bottle of dish detergent to order more. Nor do they let the sum stock of the entire paper towel aisle drift down to zero before calling in a semi-trailer or two full of paper products.

While the stocking methodology for big-box retailers is sophisticated, the key concept you can (and should) steal from their workflow is called the “reorder point.” It’s the point at which a business orders more of a given product because their existing stocks are low and the goal is never to have empty shelves and disappointed customers.

Have a little extra storage space around your home? You can apply the same concept on a less sophisticated scale (no management team or nation-wide logistical network required). Buy two of the basic staples you need the next time you go shopping, and then buy a replacement when the first item runs out. Your “reorder point” for all household staples then becomes “when I only have one” instead of “oh no, I’m out!”—so then you and the rest of the “customers” in your household can skip the disappointment of empty shelves.

Buy two jugs of laundry detergent, buy a replacement when the first jug runs out. Buy two containers of cleaning wipes, buy a new one when the first runs out. Tampons? Face wipes? Shampoo? You got it—if you use it regularly and it’s a hassle to run out of it, buy a second one and keep the “buy one when the first runs out” system rolling.

You’ll spend a small amount of extra money upfront, and you’ll sacrifice a little bit of storage space. But going forward, you’ll always have extra laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and other shelf-stable essentials on hand. Then when life gets hectic around the holidays or if there’s a nasty cold that hits everyone in your household, you can coast for a little bit on the “backup” supplies if need be—and nobody needs to make a toilet paper run high on cough syrup.



Source: How-To Geek

How to Resume an Interrupted Download in Google Chrome

Stock Chrome Logo

An internet connection can be unpredictable at times, and a sudden drop of the connection while downloading a large file can be frustrating. However, Google Chrome lets you resume downloads if they unexpectedly stop.

Resume Downloads Using Chrome’s Download Manager

Google Chrome uses a built-in download manager to display all your downloads—active, failed, canceled, and completed. The manager opens in its own tab and shows a list of every file you’ve ever downloaded in Chrome.

Note: Some websites don’t allow for you to resume a download if it fails to complete the first time around. Certain web servers don’t remember your request to download the file, forcing it to start from the beginning all over again.

To open the download manager, type chrome://downloads into the Omnibox and hit the Enter key. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+J on Windows or Command+J on macOS.

Type chrome://downloads into the Omnibox and hit Enter.

In the list of downloads, find the failed item and click “Resume”.

Click "Resume" to resume the file when you connect to the internet again.

If everything goes right, your download will resume from where it left off before you were disconnected.

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Source: How-To Geek

Insta360’s New GO Stabilized Camera Is Tiny and Mounts Everywhere

The Insta360 Go camera mounted to a person's chest.

Today, Insta360 announced its first non-360 camera. The Insta360 GO is tiny, about the size of your thumb, and stabilized for on-the-go video. The $200 camera takes 30-second clips and will mount just about anywhere.

The Tiny Little Camera for Your Chest

Insta360’s newest camera, available today, is a departure from its previous offerings. Instead of focusing on 360 videos, the Insta360 GO camera records your life in action.

The camera is magnetic and when paired with a medallion lanyard you wear under your shirt, will attach to your chest. Additional mounts will let you attach it to a headband, your car dash, and more.

Two people running, with one person wearing the Insta360 Go mounted to their hat.

To help with the “put it anywhere” concept, the company made the camera tiny, weighing in at just 20 grams (.7 ounces). But despite that small size, the camera contains stabilization technology to give you smooth video even as you walk and run.

When you press record, the camera will take a 30-second clip or 15 seconds of slow-motion video. The camera saves to Inta360 GO’s 8 GB of onboard storage. The company says you can record about 200 clips in a day before needing a recharge.

If you want to change it up, you can also record hyperlapse videos. Mount the camera, start the hyperlapse, and you can record up to 30 minutes of footage at 6X speed.

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Source: How-To Geek

Bottle It Up with These 7 Great Water Flasks

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How to Check if Your Chromecast Is Still Getting Updates

Second-generation Chromecast hardware.

Google launched the first-generation Chromecast back in 2013, and it’s still getting security updates—but that’s it. As Google confirmed to 9To5Google, this original Chromecast won’t get new features. It may be time to upgrade if you have an old one.

Checking whether you have a first-generation Chromecast is simple. You can either look at the Chromecast hardware itself or pull up the Google Home app on your smartphone.

Check Your Chromecast’s Generation By Looking at It

If you don’t remember off the top of your head, just peek behind your TV and see which one is plugged into your TV’s HDMI port.

The first generation Chromecast was more of a stick with a rounded end, while second generation and newer Chromecasts are a full circle.

In the photo below, the Chromecast on the left is a first-generation Chromecast. If your Chromecast looks like the one on the left and not the ones to the right, you have an older Chromecast that’s only receiving security updates and not new features.

First-generation Chromecast, second-generation Chromecast, and Chromecast Ultra

Find Your Chromecast’s Version From Your Phone

You can also check via the Google Home app on your mobile device. Make sure your phone or tablet is connected to the same Wi-Fi network your Chromecast is using and then open the Google Home app for Android, iPhone, or iPad.

Tap the Chromecast you want to find the version of.

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Source: How-To Geek

Tuesday 27 August 2019

Geek Trivia: What Did You Have To Defeat In The Super Secret Level Of Nintendo’s Hit Star Fox?

What Did You Have To Defeat In The Super Secret Level Of Nintendo’s Hit Star Fox?

  1. A Slot Machine
  2. Mega Man
  3. A Giant SEGA Genesis
  4. The Death Star

Think you know the answer?



Source: How-To Geek

How to Create a Google Form with Branching Logic

Google Forms Logo

When you create a survey with Google Forms, you can use conditional questioning to send respondents to specific pages based on their answers. Here’s how you can use branching logic to send people to questions that pertain to their responses.

The first thing you want to do is open the Google Forms survey where you want to use logic branching. If you don’t already have a survey prepared—or if you haven’t ever used Forms before—check out our beginner’s guide to Google Forms to help you get started.

RELATED: The Beginner’s Guide to Google Forms

Once you have the survey open, separate the questions that will have branching logic into different sections. You can create a new section by clicking on the icon that looks like two rectangles.

Click the icon with two rectangles.

Give each section a title. Doing this makes it a lot easier to differentiate each section and link answers together.

Giving a section a descriptive title will help you later on when you need to link the section to an answer.

To add more questions to your form, click the plus sign (+). If the questions already exist in your survey, drag them directly into the section where you want them to appear.

Read the remaining 15 paragraphs



Source: How-To Geek

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How to Create a Combo Chart in Excel

excel logo

A combo chart in Excel displays two chart types (such as column and line) on the same chart. They are used to show different types of information on a single chart, such as actuals against a target.

In this article, we’ll demonstrate how to make a combo chart that follows the same axis and one that displays mixed types of data in a single chart on a different axis.

Insert a Combo Chart with a Single Axis

In the first example, we will create a combo chart to show monthly revenue against a target using the sample data below.

Sample data for the single axis combo chart

You can see that the target value is the same each month. The result will show the data as a straight line.

To get started, select the range of cells you want to chart—A1:C13 in this example. Next, click Insert > Insert Combo Chart. Select “Clustered Column – Line.”

Insert a Clustered Column - Line chart

The combo chart is inserted with both the column and line using the same axis. Easy as that!

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Source: How-To Geek

The Best Infant Car Seats

How to Play Adobe Flash SWF Files Outside Your Web Browser

Adobe Flash Player on Windows showing the Trogdor Flash game from Homestar Runner

Web browsers are dropping support for Flash, but what if you have an SWF file to open? Never fear: Adobe offers a hidden Flash Player download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can open an SWF file outside your browser.

Adobe hides the standalone Flash Player very well. It’s actually called the “Flash Player content debugger” on Adobe’s website.

To get it, visit the Debug Downloads page on Adobe’s Flash Player website. Click the “Download the Flash Player projector content debugger” link under Windows, Mac, or Linux, depending on which operating system you’re using.

Downloading the standalone Flash Player from Adobe's website

On Windows, you’ll have an EXE file that needs no installation. Just double-click it to run it.

Running the standalone Flash Player EXE file

You’ll get a simple Adobe Flash Player window. To open an SWF file, either drag and drop it to the window or click File > Open. You can browse to an SWF file on your local system or enter a path to an SWF file on the web.

Opening a Flash file from the web in the standalone Adobe Flash Player

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Source: How-To Geek

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Command Lines: Why Do People Still Bother With Them?

Concept image of a Linux terminal full of text on a laptop

The command line is almost 50 years old, but it’s not outdated. Text-based terminals are still the best way to accomplish many tasks, even in the age of graphical desktops and touch-screen gadgets.

In fact, the command line is becoming more respected than ever with Microsoft creating a powerful new Windows Terminal application. Windows 10’s PowerShell environment is surprisingly powerful, but Microsoft still went out of its way to add support for basically the full Linux command-line environment to Windows 10.

The Command Line Was Once the Only Option

At one time if you wanted to interact with a computer, you typed. That was it. There was nothing else. That might sound restrictive and archaic, but as a step-up from having to use punched cards or perforated paper tapes, typing was radical and transformative. And migrating from teletypewriters with their rolls of paper to terminals with cathode ray tube (CRT) screens was another ground shift in human and computer interactions.

That step paved the way for the interactive shell to really come into its own. Now you could send instructions to the computer and very quickly have responses displayed on your screen. No more clack-clack-clack as you waited for your paper printout to clatter its way out of your teletypewriter.

Fair enough, but that was then, this is now. Computing is a whole different ball game. Apart from the obvious locked-in cases like using a computer that doesn’t have a graphical desktop environment installed, or using a remote computer via SSH over a low bandwidth connection,  or controlling a headless or embedded system, why use the command line over a graphical desktop?

Jargon Explained

Terms like command line, terminal window, and shell are used almost interchangeably by some people. That’s incorrect jargon. They are all quite different. They’re related, but they’re not the same thing.

A terminal window is a window in a graphical desktop environment that runs an emulation of a teletype terminal.

The shell is the program that runs inside the terminal window. It takes your input and, depending on what you typed, tries to interpret and execute the instructions itself, pass them to some of the other utilities that make up the operating system, or find a script or program that matches what you have typed.

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Source: How-To Geek

Monday 26 August 2019

Geek Trivia: The Japanese Word For Bad Is Incorporated Into Which Video Game Character’s Name?

The Japanese Word For Bad Is Incorporated Into Which Video Game Character’s Name?

  1. Yoshice
  2. Zoroark
  3. Wario
  4. Ganondorf

Think you know the answer?



Source: How-To Geek

How to Blur an Image in PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint logo

If your background image is drawing unnecessary attention, or you need to blur part of an image that contains sensitive information, you can do so directly in PowerPoint. We’ll show you how.

Blur an Entire Image

A blurred image.

First, open PowerPoint and navigate to the slide containing the image you want to blur. Select the image, and that automatically opens the “Picture Format” tab.

The Picture Format tab in PowerPoint.

Next, select “Artistic Effects” from the “Adjust” group.

Click "Artistic Effects."

In the drop-down menu that appears, click the Blur option.

Select the Blur option.

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Source: How-To Geek