How to Limit Windows 10’s Data Usage While Tethering

Tethering allows you to get online with your smartphone’s data connection, but you likely have a limited amount of data, and Windows 10 PCs can be very data hungry. You probably won’t want Windows 10 automatically downloading big updates and syncing large amounts of data until you get back to a normal Internet connection. Here’s how to limit that activity when you’re tethering.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Install Drywall Anchors to Hang Heavy Stuff on Your Walls

If you ever plan to mount something to the wall that’s even remotely heavy, you’ll need to use drywall anchors if a stud isn’t available. Here are the different types of drywall anchors, and how to use each one.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: In Hong Kong, The Majority Of Residents Flush Their Toilets With?

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Source: How-To Geek

How to Automatically Pause Your Music When Other Sounds Start Playing

You’re listening to music, but then you click a video. Now both things are playing at once, and you have to pause your music manually like it’s the dark ages. There has to be a better way.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Control Your Philips Hue Lights with Keyboard Shortcuts

Being able to turn your lights on and off with your voice is one of the best things about having a smart home. If you don’t have an Amazon Echo or Google Home, though—or just prefer keyboard shortcuts—you can use an AutoHotkey script to control your Philips Hue lights from your computer.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Force YouTube Videos to Open In The YouTube Gaming Interface

Have you seen the dark, chat-focused user interface for YouTube Gaming? Google’s answer to game streaming site Twitch has some interesting features all its own, and it’s a pretty slick-looking to boot. But the distinction between regular YouTube and YouTube Gaming is… well, less than distinct.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Use “Adapt Sound” on the Galaxy S7 and S8 for Better Sound Quality

Samsung’s build of Android Nougat has an incredible new feature that allows users to completely customize their listening experience based completely off their ears. It’s called Adapt Sound, and if you’re not using it, you’re missing out. Here’s everything you need to know.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Hide a Facebook Post (Without Deleting It)

Facebook has a lot of uses. For some, it’s just a social network, but for others, it’s a piece of professional branding. If you’re in the latter category, it helps to keep your Timeline tidy and free of irrelevant information.

Source: How-To Geek

What Is “Antimalware Service Executable” and Why Is It Running on My PC?

Windows 10 includes Windows Defender, Microsoft’s built-in antivirus. The “Antimalware Service Executable” process is Windows Defender’s background process. This program is also known as MsMpEng.exe, and is part of the Windows operating system.

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How to Turn on Line Numbers in vim

Vim is an extremely powerful editor, but only if you know how to use it.

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Geek Trivia: The Largest Single Source Of Dust Pollution In The United States Is A?

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How to Get the Most Out of Your Philips Hue Lights

Philips Hue is one of the most popular smart lighting brands on the market, and for good reason. However, even if you have your house decked out with Hue bulbs, you may not be using them to their fullest potential. Here are some cool things you can do with your Hue lights in order to get the most out of them.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Highest Grade Of Leather Is Called?

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Source: How-To Geek

Four Tools That Automatically Download Stunning Wallpapers Every Day

The Internet can be a horrible place, but there’s a lot of beauty out there. Beautiful paintings and photos can remind you of that, and the right program can deliver them to you automatically.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Create, Rearrange, Organize, and Remove Shortcuts on Your Synology NAS Desktop

If you find yourself routinely using the same tools and applications on your Synology NAS, it makes sense to arrange the layout of your virtual workspace to save yourself a bunch of unnecessary trips into the menu system.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Enable Color Filters on Your iPhone or iPad for Easy-on-the-Eyes Reading

On an iPhone or iPad, you can use the “Display Accommodations” accessibility feature to invert the colors on your screen, reduce the brightness of white and bright colors on your screen, and enable color filters designed to aid people with color blindness.

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Geek Trivia: Which Of These Musicians Composed The Score To Spyro The Dragon?

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How to Show Emergency Medical Information on Your iPhone

There’s a good chance you’ll have your phone with you in a medical emergency. That’s why Apple allows you to set a Medical ID that shows your medical conditions, drug allergies, emergency contacts, and organ donor status that anyone can see without unlocking your phone.

Source: How-To Geek

The Most Useful Chat and Bot Commands In Discord

Like the IRC chat of old, Discord comes with a set of slash commands that you can use to express yourself or do useful things like search for GIFs or read text aloud. Better yet, you can add bots to your Discord server to get even more functionality out of your server. Here are the most useful chat commands and bots for Discord.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Set Up Your Own Discord Chat Server

Discord is an excellent, free chat application that was built for gamers, but is useful for anyone. It comes with Slack-style text chat, group voice chat channels, and plenty of tools to manage your users. It’s a great tool for getting a community together or talking with friends while you play games. Here’s how to set up your own server.

Source: How-To Geek

Why You Shouldn’t Turn Off Virtual Memory on Your Mac

Your Mac comes with a set amount of physical memory applications can use. Your running programs, open files, and other data your Mac is actively working with are stored in this physical memory. But that’s a simplification—applications can also use “virtual memory”, which your Mac can compress and temporarily store on disk.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Add Attachments in Gmail for Android

If you don’t use email as part of your day to day life, it can easily be one of those things that seems more complicated than it is. But there’s no need to break out the computer if you simply need to email something—a picture, document, something—because you can easily do it directly from your phone.

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How to Stop Twitter Highlights from Pestering You with Unrelated Notifications

Social networks are always trying to get you to “engage” more with their service and recently, Twitter has introduced a new trick: Highlights notifications.

Source: How-To Geek

What Is Wake-on-LAN, and How Do I Enable It?

Technology often yields ridiculous conveniences, like being able to turn on your computer from miles away without pushing the power button. Wake-on-LAN has been around for a while, so let’s see how it works and how we can enable it.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Backup a Live MySQL DB Without Locking Tables Using mysqldump

Backing up MySQL is not very hard — you just run mysqldump and output to a file — but it’s also not really d…

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Source: How-To Geek

How to Get More Detailed Weather Info From Alexa

Alexa’s built-in weather forecast is handy for those who just want the basic forecast for the day, but it doesn’t do much more than that. However, with a third party skill called Big Sky, you can make Alexa spit out a ton of information about the weather and ask it nearly anything about what’s coming.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Actor James Doohan Was Awarded An Honorary Degree In?

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How to Install Chrome OS from a USB Drive and Run It on Any PC

Google only officially supports running Chrome OS on Chromebooks, but don’t let that stop you. You can put the open source version of Chrome OS on a USB drive and boot it on any computer without installing it, just like you’d run a Linux distribution from a USB drive.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Override Chrome’s “Quit Everything” Ctrl+Shift+Q Shortcut

Google seems to think there’s a good reason to have a shortcut that will kill every single one of your tabs at once. We disagree. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Q will close every Chrome tab or window you have open and ruin your work. If you’d rather keep your work where it is, here’s a workaround to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Completely Remove a Book From Your Kindle Library

You’ve probably been happily reading ebooks on your Kindle (or the Kindle app) for years, accruing a nice digital library full of interesting titles. But what if, for some reason, someone else needs to see that library of yours…and there are some items within that you’d rather they didn’t? Say, perhaps, one of those steamy romance novels that makes up a massive 34% of fiction sales in US?

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How to Avoid Toll Roads in Google Maps

No one likes to pay to be able to drive on a specific road, especially if you’re just passing through. Thankfully, Google Maps has an easy way to bypass toll roads when using navigation.

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What Is “Bulb Mode” on My Camera?

If you’ve turned the shutter speed dial on your camera past 30 seconds, you might have noticed the strangely named “Bulb” mode. This is a throwback from the first film cameras, but it’s still useful today.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Remotely Troubleshoot a Friend’s Windows PC Without Any Extra Software

Windows offers a few built-in tools for performing remote assistance over the Internet. These tools allow you to take remote control of another person’s computer so you can help them troubleshoot it while you’re on the phone with them. They work similarly to Remote Desktop, but are available on all editions of Windows and are easy to set up.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Exclude Tables from MySQL Exports Using mysqldump

While setting up a new testing environment to help development make slightly less bugs, I was looking at how to transfer the database…

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How to Activate Third Party Game Codes in Steam

Unbeknownst to many people, it’s not a requirement that you purchase a game directly from Valve in order to use it with their Steam gaming platform—and, in fact, it’s often advantageous to purchase your game from a third party retailer. Let’s take a look at how to get your third party games into your Steam account.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Listen to (and Delete) Every Command You’ve Ever Given to Alexa

Believe it or not, the Amazon Echo has something similar to what your web browser history is on your computer: Alexa records and logs every single command you’ve ever given. Here’s how to access it and see (and hear) everything you’ve ever said to her.

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Geek Trivia: Bears In Yellowstone National Park Get A Significant Number Of Calories From Eating?

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What Is launchd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac?

You’re scrolling through Activity Monitor when you notice a process you’re not familiar with: launchd. Should you be worried? No: this is actually a cord part of macOS.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Catch Legendary Pokémon in Pokémon Go

Since the game went online over a year ago, players of Niantic’s massively popular (and often frustrating) AR monster-catcher have wondered where all the legendary creatures are hiding in Pokémon Go. The original Game Boy title had massively powerful, interesting, and unique legendary Pokémon way back in the 90s, but the smartphone game launched without access to Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, and Mewtwo, despite a heavy feature in the original trailer.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Get Android’s System UI Tuner on Non-Stock Devices

One benefit users of stock Android devices have had for the past few iterations of the OS is the System UI Tuner—a hidden menu that allows for extra customization of simple things like which icons are shown in the status bar, powerful notification controls, and more. Now, thanks to a new app (and a short workaround), you can have this menu on any Android device—not just ones running stock Android.

Source: How-To Geek

What Is a “Fast” Camera Lens?

Photography has a lot of confusing terminology, and often there are several ways to describe the same idea. One of the more annoying ones is when lenses are called “fast”. How can a lens have a speed? If you drop two lenses, they’ll both hit the ground (and break) at the same time. It’s an old term, so let’s find out.

Source: How-To Geek

What’s the Best Antivirus for Windows 10? (Is Windows Defender Good Enough?)

Windows 10 won’t hassle you to install an antivirus like Windows 7 did. Since Windows 8, Windows now includes a built-in antivirus called Windows Defender (which used to be available separately as Microsoft Security Essentials). But is it really the best for protecting your PC–or even just good enough?

Source: How-To Geek

How to Backup / Export a Single Table from a MySQL Database

The other day I was testing a feature on my development box when I realized my local data was really out of date, and if I was going to get anywhere with my testing, I needed some recent data from production.

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Source: How-To Geek

Microsoft Paint Was Never Going to Die, But It Made for Good Headlines

Some stories are simply too good not to be true. It’s an old adage in the media, something reporters knowingly say to each other when something is too fun, too good of a story, and too likely to go viral for anyone to fact check. You don’t want to be that guy, killing everyone’s buzz.

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How to Control Your Smarthome Products with the Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo can do a lot more than play music and check the weather. As futuristically as you’d expect, it can actually control a wide range of smarthome products so that all your home comforts are just a voice command away. Read on as we show you how.

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Geek Trivia: Many Of John Hughes’ Films Take Place In The Shared Imaginary Town Of?

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How to Find or Create an RSS Feed for Any Website

If you’re still a dedicated RSS user, you’ve no doubt noticed some sites no longer go out of their way to cater to you. Where once an RSS logo would be prominently displayed, now it’s nowhere to be found. How are you supposed to find RSS feeds?

Source: How-To Geek

Domino’s Pizza Sucks, So Why Can’t Anyone Else Top Their Tech?

For years, I’ve dreamed of having an Emergency Pizza Button that will automatically order a pizza for me with a single tap. I’m not the only one with this dream. There have been countless innovations in pizza ordering technology in recent years…but they’ve all been from Domino’s. Which sucks, because they have the worst pizza. Why can’t other pizza companies catch up?

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How to Make a Tabletop Studio for Perfect eBay or Craigslist Sale Photos

So you’ve decided to flex your mercurial muscles and start selling products online. High-quality photos are a simple way to attract more buyers, and contrary to what you might think, they don’t require thousands of dollars in equipment. With a simple photo tent and some lights, even a decent smartphone camera can take great photos of small-to-medium objects.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Properly Test 911 Services on Your Cell Phone

Recently, OnePlus owners got a scare when users discovered the new OnePlus 5 would reboot upon trying to call to 911 emergency services. Other Android users then showed up to say the same thing happened to them—many on non-OnePlus phones. The last thing you need is for your phone to not work when you need it most, so here’s the right way to test 911 services on your phone to make sure it actually works.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Properly Thread Tweets for Your Tweetstorms

Twitter threads (aka tweetstorms) might be widely hated, but they are a big part of the Twitter experience. Since you’re most likely going to do them, you might as well do them right. Here’s how.

Source: How-To Geek

What’s New in Windows 10’s Fall Creators Update, Arriving September 2017

Windows 10’s Fall Creators Update, codenamed Redstone 3, will be released in September 2017. Here are all the new features you’ll see in the latest version of Windows—and some big, splashy features Microsoft announced that never arrived.

Source: How-To Geek

How to See Which MySQL Tables are Taking the Most Space

Database backups are one of those things that just keep getting bigger and bigger until they consume all the matter in the world.

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Source: How-To Geek

How to Add IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes Ratings to Your Plex Media Server

Why settle for mediocre ratings on your otherwise perfect Plex Media Server? With a simple trick, you can add IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes movie ratings to Plex and enjoy more accurate movie scores.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Receive an Alexa Alert When Your Amazon Package Is Out for Delivery

There are many ways to receive notifications about the status of your Amazon packages. The Amazon app on your phone can send you a push notification, for example. But wouldn’t it be cooler if Alexa told you right from your Echo device?

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Composition Of The Iconic “Bliss” Windows XP Wallpaper Was Only Possible Because Of?

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Why Don’t Macs Have “Intel Inside” Stickers?

There’s an Intel sticker on basically every PC, generally impossible to remove without leaving some nasty residue. Macs also use Intel processors, so why don’t they have stickers?

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How to Disable Facebook’s Chat-Style Post Tab Notifications

When you chat with people on Facebook, each conversation appears at the bottom-right corner of the site as a chat tab. Now, Facebook is using the same tool for posts you’re following. Any time someone comments on your posts, or posts you’ve also commented on, a tab will pop up in the bottom-right corner. This can get overwhelming. Here’s how to turn that off.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Install (or Move) Apps to Another Drive on Windows 10

Windows 10 allows you to install apps from the Store on any drive you like. You can also move apps you’ve previously installed to a new location without uninstalling and reinstalling them.

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How (and Why) to Disable 2.4GHz Wi-Fi on Your Network

Technology is an odd duck: in less than twenty years, Wi-Fi has gone from an amazing (and expensive) luxury to an assumed inclusion in every device you own. And yet, there’s plenty of room for improvement…which is why you should consider disabling the old 2.4GHz band on your home’s Wi-Fi network and using the newer, faster, less crowded 5GHz band exclusively.

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How to Download Google Maps Data for Offline Navigation on Android or iPhone

As much as cellular providers want to brag about their coverage maps, we have to be real with each other: 100% coverage simply doesn’t exist. And if you’re travelling inan area where coverage could drop, having your maps saved for offline use is a godsend. Here’s how to do it.

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What Does Twitter’s “Quality Filter” Do?

Twitter is an oddball. The very things that make it great—everyone’s in one big public water cooler, you can reach out to anyone just by @mentioning them, accounts can be anonymous—are what lead to its abuse and spam problems.

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10+ Useful System Tools Hidden in Windows

Windows contains a variety of system utilities that are useful, but well-hidden. Some are buried deep in the Start menu, while others you can access only if you know the right command to run.

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How to Test Your Nginx Config File (and Why You Should)

If you’re making changes to your nginx configuration files, you are running a huge risk if you restart nginx and you made a mistake, a typo, or copied and pasted from Stackoverflow wrong.

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Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Tamagotchis, The Fad “Pocket Pet” Toy That Swept The Late 1990s, Was Created By What Company?

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How to Get the Most Out of Your Amazon Echo

If you’re new to the Amazon Echo, you probably know most of the basic actions and commands that you can tell Alexa, like playing music, setting timers, and getting weather updates. However, here are some tricks that you may not have known about, all of which will take your Echo game to the next level.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Find or Delete Files Less Than X Minutes Old on Linux

Say you just ran some script that was supposed to move files around or download stuff, or anything else that involves files, and then you realize that you need to figure out what files just got created and where.

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Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Term “Dungeon Master” Belongs To Which Company?

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How to Find Someone’s Phone Number Online

Finding someone’s phone number online is tricky. Cell phone numbers are private—there’s no public directory of cell phone numbers to replace those old paper phone books. However, there are a few ways you can find someone’s phone number (and business phone numbers are still easy to find).

Source: How-To Geek

How to Time a How Long a Terminal Command Takes

If you have a long running script that you are working on improving, it can be useful to figure out exactly how long the script or command takes to run so you’ll know for sure whether the next run was faster or slower than the first one.

Luckily there’s an easy way to do it usi…

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How to Back Up and Restore Your Synology NAS Configuration

You’ve spent a lot of time configuring your Synology NAS to be just perfect. So take the time to periodically backup your configuration file to keep all your settings safe and sound.

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How to Use a Multimeter

If you’re doing any kind of electrical work—no matter what the application is—one of the best tools you can have at your disposal is a multimeter. If you’re just getting started, here’s how to use one and what all those confusing symbols mean.

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Geek Trivia: When You Play A Video Game So Much You Begin Dreaming About It, You’re Experiencing?

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How to Turn Twitter Threads Into Readable Blog Posts

Twitter threads are the worst. Don’t make them.

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How to Use Someone Else’s Music Subscription On a Shared Google Home

Google Home lets you listen to music from Spotify, Pandora, Play Music, and even YouTube Red. You can also share your Google Home with other members of your household. If you don’t have a music subscription, but someone else in your house does, you can set Google Home to use their account for your music needs. Here’s how.

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How to Check Your Mac for 32-Bit Applications That Will Stop Working After High Sierra

Apple is abandoning support for old 32-bit applications across the board. iOS 11 won’t support 32-bit apps, and now macOS High Sierra will be the “last macOS release to support 32-bit apps without compromises”. Here’s how to check your Mac for apps that will stop working in the future.

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How to Install the Beyond Skyrim: Bruma Mod

It’s been over five years since The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim landed in gamers’ eager hands, and we don’t seem any closer to a true sequel than we were back then (no, The Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t count). Bethesda is content to port the old game to every new platform possible, but the modding community is picking up the slack, adding tons of new, professional-level content to the original version of the RPG.

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How to Run a Cron Job Only on Sunday (or Any Other Day)

I needed to setup a cron job to perform some maintenance which I wanted to automatically run on Sunday night since that’s usually a low traffic period.

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Source: How-To Geek

How to Sync Your Desktop PC with Google Drive (and Google Photos)

Google has been doing its part to make sure everyone has a backup of important data, and it recently released a new tool for Windows and Mac users to take that redundancy to the next level. Appropriately named Backup and Sync, it’s a quick and effective tool to store your important files in the cloud.

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How to Get Notified When a Certain Account Tweets

Twitter has managed to take the idea of following someone 24/7 and somehow keep it from being creepy. If regular following isn’t enough for you though, you can get the Twitter app on your smartphone to send you push notifications when specific accounts Tweet.

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Why Is the Dialogue So Quiet on My HDTV?

We’ve all been there: the characters on screen are talking and it’s way too quiet so you crank up the volume only to be blasted by a loud explosion two seconds later. Why is the dialogue so quiet and what can you do to fix it? Read on as we show you how to tame wild swings in TV audio output.

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Geek Trivia: The First Volunteer Computing Project Was Focused On?

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How to Install Applications On a Mac: Everything You Need to Know

If you’re switching to macOS from Windows, you might be confused about installing software. Sure, there’s the Mac App Store, but not everything is in there.

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How to Find Public Wi-Fi Using the Facebook App on Your Phone

Everyone needs to find a Wi-Fi hotspot every once in a while. Almost everyone has Facebook. If you have the Facebook on your phone, you can use it to find local businesses that offer public Wi-Fi. Here’s how to use this tool.

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How to Format USB Drives Larger Than 32GB With FAT32 on Windows

For whatever reason, the option to format USB drives larger than 32GB with the FAT32 file system isn’t present in the regular Windows format tool. Here’s how to get around that.

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How to Use Logitech Flow for Mice and Keyboards Across Multiple Computers

Logitech’s newest mice and keyboards have an interesting additional feature called Flow. Flow lets you use a mouse and keyboard across multiple PCs, very much like Synergy or Mouse Without Borders, but with a much simpler setup process.

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What to Do If Clicks Don’t Register in Android Apps on a Chromebook

Android apps on Chromebooks have some great benefits: they expand the device’s capabilities, have an overall small footprint, and they work very well on limited hardware. That said, they’re still in beta, and sometimes things don’t work as they should.

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How to Add a Link to Your Snapchat Snaps

With Instagram’s new Story feature proving popular, Snapchat is having to compete hard. They’ve recently added a whole host of new features, if only, it seems, to make Instagram’s developers waste time copying them. One of these new features it the ability to share links through your Snaps. Here’s how to use it.

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What Is “Windows Modules Installer Worker” and Why Is It Running on My PC?

If you hear your computer’s fans spin up and feel it getting hotter for no apparent reason, check the Task Manager and you might see “Windows Modules Installer Worker” using a lot of CPU and disk resources. This process, also known as TiWorker.exe, is a part of the Windows operating system.

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How to Safely Observe the Upcoming Solar Eclipse

Around a month from now, North Americans will be treated to a spectacular solar eclipse. But you can’t just run outside on your lunch break and take a peek without proper precautions. Let us help you prepare now to enjoy the solar eclipse safely.

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What Is the “Queue” Tab in the Alexa App?

The Player tab in the bottom right-hand corner of the Alexa app is a recent addition—there, you can see what media your Echo is currently playing. However, within that section there’s a mysterious “Queue” tab. Here’s what it actually does.

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Geek Trivia: Volkswagen Sells More Of What Thing Than They Sell Cars?

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How to Make the Mouse Cursor Bigger or Smaller on Your Mac

The macOS cursor isn’t tiny, but some people have trouble seeing it. If you’re one of them, you might want to make it bigger, and it’s not hard to do so.

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How to Stop Facebook Videos From Playing Sound Automatically

In Facebook’s endless quest to make your life “better” (where better has a very subjective meaning), it has added a feature to its mobile app that will automatically play sound when a video starts. If you’d rather turn this annoying feature off, here’s how.

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How to See Who Logged Into a Computer (and When)

Have you ever wanted to monitor who’s logging into your computer and when? On Professional editions of Windows, you can enable logon auditing to have Windows track which user accounts log in and when.

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How to Avoid Abusive Online Gamers

A wise man once said that a normal person, plus anonymity, plus an audience, equals…well, something we can’t reprint on a family-friendly website. But the tendency for anonymous crowds to be abusive is well-known, and adding in the competitive nature of online multiplayer games doesn’t help things.

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How to Add a Voice Filter to Your Video in Snapchat

Snapchat has always been the most fun social network. It’s a place where you send bad photos without fear that your boss will see them. To that end, Snapchat has broken one of the features previously only available as part of Lenses into its own thing: Voice Filters.

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What Is the AppData Folder in Windows?

Windows applications often store their data and settings in an AppData folder, and each Windows user account has its own. It’s a hidden folder, so you’ll only see it if you show hidden files in the file manager.

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How to Figure Out the Size of Screws, Bolts, and Nuts

If you have some stray screws and bolts (a.k.a. fasteners) lying around and aren’t quite sure what size they are, or if you need to replace a missing bolt on a piece of machinery and need to know what size to get, here are some methods to easily figure that out.

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Geek Trivia: Which Star Trek Character Was Added Specifically To Appeal To Teenage Viewers?

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How to Test Your Internet Speed from the Command Line

Want to quickly check the speed of your current Internet connection? With speedtest-cli you can run a test in the command prompt, on any operating system.

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What Is Xbox Game Pass, and Is It Worth It?

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass promises access to over 100 games for a $10 per month subscription fee. Microsoft wants Xbox Game Pass to be the “Netflix of video games”—but is it really worth it?

Source: How-To Geek

How to Erase and Format a Drive in Windows

Most hard drives come “preformatted” and ready to use these days. But you occasionally might need to format one yourself.

Source: How-To Geek

What Is Intel Optane Memory?

In the quest for ever-faster computers, Intel is constantly introducing new upgrades to its products to try and get a bit of extra cash out of enthusiasts and corporate customers. One of the company’s most dramatic introductions as of late has been its branded Optane memory, launched alongside the seventh generation of Core-series processors.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Mute (Most) Spam Accounts and Trolls on Twitter

I love Twitter, but there’s no denying it has long had a spam and troll problem. Tweet about a popular product or service, and you’ll often get weird replies from random accounts. Poke your head out and take a political stance, and anonymous trolls will try to cut you down.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Track Sales and Price Drops on Amazon

Amazon adjusts prices on its products all the time. If you have time to wait for a good deal, you can track prices on stuff you want (and even get alerts) using a web site called CamelCamelCamel, and its browser extension The Camelizer.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Set Up and Get Started with Your Synology NAS

Synology offers a very user friendly Network Attached Storage (NAS) device experience, but that doesn’t mean unboxing it and starting it up is exactly a one-click affair. Let’s get things up and running so we can move onto all the fun projects a compact NAS with server-like functionality can facilitate.

Source: How-To Geek

How Try Chrome OS in VirtualBox Before Buying a Chromebook

Google’s Chromebooks run Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system based on Linux that provides you with a full Chrome browser and a basic desktop environment. Before buying a Chromebook, you may want to play with Chrome OS in a virtual machine in a window on your desktop.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Which Breed Of Dogs Is Considered The Universal Blood Donor For Their Species?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

How to Disable Window Transparency in macOS

There are a lot of transparency effects in macOS these days. You can see it twice in the Finder window above: the colors from the desktop wallpaper show through the left sidebar, and the pictures I’m scrolling past bleed through the top of the window. You can even see this while scrolling.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Change the Alarm Volume On Your Google Home

If you want to adjust the volume on your Google Home, you can just swipe along the touch-sensitive top of the device to turn the volume up or down. However, alarms use a different volume level. To adjust that, you’ll need to open up the Google Home app on your phone.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Get Android Apps to See External Storage on Chromebooks

Android apps are a great way to expand the sometimes limited capabilities of Chromebooks, but they can be a problem if you store most of your data on an external medium—like an SD card, for example.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Add a Backdrop to Your Snapchat Snap

Snapchat seems to be doubling down on its mixed-reality features to stay ahead of Instagram. They’ve added a new feature where you can add a weird backdrop to your Snaps. Here’s how to use it.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Reverse Look Up a Phone Number

You get a call from a phone number you don’t recognize. There’s a good chance it’s just a scammer, but it could also be a legitimate business or a person you know. Rather than answering the phone or calling the number back, there are a few quick ways you can identify just who it was who tried to call you.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Name Of The Most Popular Supercomputer Job Scheduler In The World Is A Nod To?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

How to Get the Most Out of Your Nest Thermostat

The Nest Thermostat is one of the most-loved smart thermostats on the market, but are you getting the most out of all its great features? Here are some things you might be missing out on.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Color Your Eyes See In The Absence Of Visible Light Is Called?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

How to Run PC Games at Resolutions Higher Than Your Monitor with Supersampling

What’s the ideal resolution for a PC game? Ask most players and they’ll immediately answer, “Whatever your monitor can support.” That’s the obvious solution—after all, it would hardly make sense to render graphics at higher than your equipment can actually output and your eyes can see, right? …Right? 

Source: How-To Geek

How to Set Apple Maps to Default to Walking Directions

The default mode of transportation in Apple Maps is set to driving, but with a simple tweak, you can adjust your Apple Maps experience to default to the mode you use most.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Share Access to Your Abode Security System with Other Household Members

While you can invite other users to share access to your home’s Abode security system during the initial setup process, here’s how to access that screen if you ever want to invite someone else.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Now-Ubiquitous “Times New Roman” Font Was Originally Commissioned By?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

How to Empty the macOS Trash on Your External Drives

You know that flash drive full of kitten pictures you carry at all times? Of course you do: we all have one. Sometimes you want to free up some space on your kitten drive, so you drag a couple gigs of old pictures to the Trash on your Mac.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Clean Your Nintendo Switch

Your Nintendo Switch is probably filthy. Since the Switch pulls double duty as a shared family console and a handheld gaming console, it has extra opportunity to get dirty fingers all over it. Here’s how to clean all the parts of your Switch without getting it wet or ruining it.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Set Screen Time Limits for Kids on an Xbox One

The Xbox One now has a “Screen Time” feature that allows you to control how much your children can use the console. For example, you could restrict game time to only between 3 PM and 9 PM, but with a maximum of two hours. Different settings can be applied to different child accounts and for different days of the week.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Delete a Photo from Your Instagram Story

Instagram’s Story feature is great, but like with all Story features, it’s easy to let muscle memory take over and accidentally share a photo with everyone who follows you rather than the person you meant to send it to. I’ve made this mistake more than once. Most of the time, all that anyone will see is a weirdly out of context photo, but sometimes, things can be a bit more sensitive. Whatever happens, here’s how to delete a photo from your Instagram Story.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Sideload Apps on Android

Just because an app isn’t available from the Google Play Store doesn’t mean it’s not available at all—you can effectively install non-Play Store apps on any Android phone, tablet, or other device by enabling one simple toggle. This practice is called “sideloading.”

Source: How-To Geek

How to Install Chrome OS on Any PC and Turn It Into a Chromebook

Want to turn any old computer into a Chromebook? Google doesn’t provide official builds of Chrome OS for anything but official Chromebooks, but there are ways you can install the open-source Chromium OS software or a similar operating system.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Add Emergency Contacts to Your Abode Home Security System

If you pay for professional monitoring with your Abode home security system, you can set up emergency contacts that are notified whenever an intrusion is detected, adding in a bit more peace of mind.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Kintsugi Is The Japanese Art Of Repairing Pottery With?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

How to Enable macOS’ Dark Menu Bar and Dock

You’ve seen it in screenshots: a black menu bar, and a black dock. How did they do that?

Source: How-To Geek

How to Customize Your Echo Show’s Home Screen

The Echo Show is the only Amazon Echo product with a home screen. When you’re not using it, the Show will suggest voice commands, display your events, and even bring you current events. If you don’t like what you see, you can customize the background photo and what cards the Echo Show displays when it’s not doing something else.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Manage Partitions on Windows Without Downloading Any Other Software

There are tons of third-party partition managers for Windows, but did you know that Windows includes its own? Microsoft did a good job of hiding the Disk Management tool, but it’s there.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Shrink a VMware Virtual Machine and Free Up Disk Space

By default, VMware creates “growable” disks that grow larger in size as you add data. Unfortunately, they don’t automatically shrink when you remove data. You’ll need to clean up or compact your disks to actually free up space on your hard drive.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Remap the Galaxy S8’s Bixby Button (Without Rooting)

With the launch of the Galaxy S8, Samsung decided to get in on the “personal assistant” action with its own version, called Bixby—there’s even a dedicated button to launch the service on the S8. The thing is, Bixby just isn’t very good.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Block People in Facebook Messenger

While you can block someone completely on Facebook, it’s a pretty dramatic measure. Essentially, your Facebook account will cease to exist for them. If you’re just trying to get a bit of a break, you can unfriend them or block them from sending you Facebook Messages so they can’t contact you privately. Here’s how.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Control Multiple Windows PCs With One Keyboard Using Synergy

If you use multiple Windows machines on your desk, you’re probably tired of swapping between keyboards and mice. There are hardware solutions—KVM switches, which use multiple inputs and outputs to share physical mice and keyboards. Synergy, a program that does the same thing over a network, is a more elegant solution…but it does require a little non-obvious setup.

Source: How-To Geek

Do You Need Amazon Prime to Use the Amazon Echo?

Amazon’s popular Echo speaker system (and the personal assistant Alexa that comes with it) seem completely enmeshed with Amazon ecosystem, but does that mean you need a Prime account to take advantage of the Echo?

Source: How-To Geek

How to Save Edited Instagram Photos Without Posting Them

Unfortunately, there’s no built-in method for saving your edited Instagram photos without posting them first. However, with this neat trick, you can add Instagram filters to your photos and save them locally to your phone without actually having to post them.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Lisa Simpson Is A Vegetarian Due To The Influence Of?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

How to Enable Night Shift in macOS to Reduce Eyestrain

Night Shift is a new feature introduced in macOS Sierra 10.12.4, and you might already be familiar with it if you’re an iOS user. Here’s how to enable it and set it up on your Mac.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Set Up and Customize Do Not Disturb Mode On the Echo Show

Now that Amazon Echos can receive calls and messages, it’s only a matter of time before you get sick of all the notifications. The Echo Show can be the most invasive, allowing impromptu video calls or Drop Ins, and showing you events or news. Here’s how to enable Do Not Disturb mode on the Echo Show so you can get some peace and quiet at night.

Source: How-To Geek

The Different Kinds of Standing Desks (and Which You Should Use)

The verdict is still out on whether standing desks, as a verified thing, are actually better for you in the long run. As someone with some pretty severe back problems myself, I swear by them, and I’ve done a lot of research into the best options, both ergonomically and in terms of budget. Let’s have a look, shall we?

Source: How-To Geek

How to Quickly Switch Between Running Apps and Games on the PlayStation 4 or Pro

You probably don’t do a lot of multitasking on your PlayStation 4, but sometimes you just need to flip back and forth between a pair of apps (or an app and a game). Fortunately, there’s a fast and easy way to do this.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Stop Facebook Messenger Videos From Autoplaying

Auto-playing videos are one of the worst things about social media, and now they’re on by default in Facebook Messenger. If I want to watch a video, I’ll click play. I don’t need Messenger to just decide that, since someone’s sent me a video, I want to watch it there and then. Here’s how to turn it off.

Source: How-To Geek

How “Apps for Websites” Work in Windows 10

Microsoft added “Apps for websites” to Windows 10 with the Anniversary Update. This feature allows installed apps to take over when you visit their associated website. For example, when you visit a Groove Music web page in Edge, Chrome, or another browser, the Groove Music app can pop up and take it from there.

Source: How-To Geek

Why Do CPU Cores All Have the Same Speed Instead of Different Ones?

If you have ever done much comparison shopping for a new CPU, you may have noticed that cores all seem to have the speed rather than a combination of different ones. Why is that? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Increase the Resolution of the Abode Motion Camera

By default, the motion camera that comes with your Abode home security system is set at a lower resolution, but here’s how to up the resolution if you want a better-quality image out of the motion camera.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Which Of These Convenience Stores Was Originally Called “Tote’m Stores”?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

What Is blued, And Why Is It Running on My Mac?

You’re looking through Activity Monitor when you notice a process called blued. Should you be worried that this is running? No: it’s the process that powers Bluetooth on your Mac.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Convert Between Preallocated and Growable Disks in VMware

VMware normally creates “growable” disks, which start small and grow over time as you add data. However, you can also create “preallocated” disks that start at their maximum size. If you want to compact a disk later, you’ll need to convert it from preallocated to growable. Or, you may want to convert a disk from growable to preallocated for maximum performance.

Source: How-To Geek

Turn Your Chromebook Into a Gaming Laptop with Android Apps and a Gamepad

Android apps on Chromebooks are great for getting things done, but they also allow Chromebooks to become more game friendly than ever before, thanks to Google Play’s vast game catalog. Pair that with a Bluetooth controller, and you have a pretty solid little gaming rig for on the go.

Source: How-To Geek

What Is the Best Lens for Taking Portraits?

Good portraits are one of the hardest things to shoot with your camera’s kit lens. No matter how hard you try, you just won’t be able to get the images from an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens to look like the kind of portraits that you see in magazines or online.

Source: How-To Geek

What Is 3D NAND Memory and Storage?

Flash storage (like SSDs) is all the rage for PCs these days. And though the process isn’t going as fast as we might hope for, that storage is getting cheaper and denser all the time, creeping up in value towards conventional spinning disk hard drives. The biggest leap forward as of late has been 3D NAND flash, also known as vertical NAND or “V-NAND.” What does this mean for you? In layman’s terms, cheaper and faster storage and memory. In non-layman’s terms, well, let’s take a look.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Get an Alert When an Amazon Prime Day Deal Goes Live

Amazon’s Prime Day may be about as made up of a holiday as Festivus, but you can sometimes score a few good deals. Rather than refreshing the page every few minutes, though, you can have Amazon notify you when a sale goes live. Here’s how to get those alerts sent straight to your phone.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Wirelessly Transfer Photos from Your DSLR to Your Smartphone

You’ve got a great digital camera. You’ve got all your social media apps on your phone. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could snap a beautiful shot with your DSLR and shuttle it right over to your phone to throw up on Facebook or Instagram? With an inexpensive upgrade, any camera can become a Wi-Fi enabled one.

Source: How-To Geek

What the Amazon Dash Wand Can (and Can’t) Do

The Amazon Dash Wand is a $20 dongle-like device that’s marketed as the definitive kitchen assistant. It can shop for groceries for you and has Alexa built in, making it the cheapest Alexa device that Amazon sells (especially if you consider the fact that it’s basically free after the $20 credit you get when buying it). However, there are a lot of things it can’t do. Here’s a little rundown of that the Wand is and isn’t capable of.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Traditional Yellow Color Of American Pencils Is A Nod To?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

How to Run Your Mac’s Boot Camp Partition as a Virtual Machine

Sometimes you want to quickly run a Windows program, without restarting your Mac. Sometimes you need access to all your Mac’s computing power for a Windows program or game. All of this makes it hard to decide whether you should dual boot with Boot Camp or use a virtual machine.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Change the Brightness and Alarm Volume On Your Echo Show

Your Echo Show is a device for the whole family to share, which means you’ll want to make sure everyone can both see and hear it. Here’s how to adjust the brightness settings, disable adaptive brightness, and change the volume of your alarms.

Source: How-To Geek

What File System Should I Use for My USB Drive?

It can be tough transporting your videos and music to every device you use. How do you know your Mac, Xbox, and Windows PC can read your files? Read on to find your perfect USB drive solution.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Rename Your Amazon Echo Devices

If you only have one or two Echos, it may not matter if they’re called boring and repetitive names like “John’s Echo” and “John’s Second Echo” in the Alexa app. But the more Echos you have, the more it can matter—especially if you use features like Amazon’s “drop in” intercom system and other calling features.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Check Your iPhone or iPad for 32-Bit Apps That Won’t Run on iOS 11

iPhones and iPads will no longer run 32-bit apps with the release of iOS 11 later in 2017. Those apps currently display a message saying they “need to be updated”, and they won’t run at all once you’ve upgraded. Here’s how to check which apps you have installed will stop functioning, if any.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Change the Arm and Disarm Delay for the Abode Home Security System

When you arm and disarm your Abode home security system, it delays it for 60 seconds by default, presumably to give you enough time to leave the house before the whole system is armed. Here’s how to change the delay time or disable it completely.

Source: How-To Geek

The Best Texting Apps for Android

Over the course of the past decade or so, phone calls have died off as our primary form of communication with most people, with text messages being the replacement. And if you’re going to use texting as much as you do, you might as well be using the best apps to do it. Let’s talk about ’em.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Painted Navigational Markers Left On Hiking Trails Are Called?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

Why Does My iPhone Display “Security Recommendation” for a Wi-Fi Network?

When you connect to a Wi-Fi network on your iPhone, you may see the words “Security Recommendation” appear beneath its name. This is a warning that you’re connected to either an unsecured network or one encrypted with weak WEP security.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: This 1990s Television Show Ushered In The Era Of Sophisticated Title Sequences?

Think you know the answer? Click through to see if you're right!

Source: How-To Geek

How to Install Windows on a Mac With Boot Camp

Thanks to the switch from PowerPC to Intel many years ago, a Mac is just another PC. Sure, Macs come with macOS, but you can easily install Windows alongside macOS using Apple’s built-in Boot Camp feature.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Try Out New Overwatch Heroes on the PTR Server

Blizzard's team-based first-person shooter Overwatch has quickly become one of the most popular multiplayer games on the planet. There are a lot of reasons for this: fantastic character design, tight balancing, excellent gameplay variety.

Source: How-To Geek

Snapchat’s New Map Feature, Explained (and How to Disable It)

Snapchat is rolling out features at an incredible rate. Some of them are nice tweaks, like adding voice filters. Others, like Snap Map, are honestly pretty dangerous. Let’s look at what the new Snap Map is, what’s wrong with it, and most importantly, how to disable it.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Thanks To A Shipping Container Accident, Residents Of Cornwall England Find Thousands Of What On Their Beaches?

Answer: LEGO Parts In 1997, a rogue wave---a wave that appears suddenly in the ocean and is significantly larger than nearby waves---slammed into the freighter Tokio Express while it was en route between Rotterdam and New York City.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Create a Custom Color Scene From a Photo With Your Philips Hue Lights

With a tap of a button, you can change the color of your Philips Hue lights. While the Hue app comes with a few color presets built-in, you can also create your own custom scenes from your own photos.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Use the Built-in Windows Defender Antivirus on Windows 10

Windows 10 has built-in real-time antivirus named Windows Defender, and it's actually pretty good.

Source: How-To Geek

What’s New in iOS 11 for iPhone and iPad, Arriving Fall 2017

iOS 11 is on its way, and Apple announced a number of new features and changes at WWDC 2017 this year. From improvements to Messages and Apple Pay to powerful multitasking and file management on the iPad, here are the best new features of iOS coming this fall.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Stop Your iPhone’s Portrait Mode From Making Multiple Files

The iPhone 7 Plus’ Portrait Mode is really awesome. In the right circumstances, it makes it possible to take portraits that look like they were shot using a DSLR and a wide aperture lens just using your iPhone.

Source: How-To Geek

10 Handy Uses for Your Old iPad or Android Tablet

Tablet sales are slumping at the moment, probably as a result of big smartphones and convertible laptops chip away at a tablet's usefulness. But if you have one or more tablets at home gathering dust while you happily poke away at your giant smartphone, there are probably some good ways to put them to use rather than selling them or recycling them.

Source: How-To Geek

Don’t Be Fooled: Cheap Third-Party Apple Watch Bands Are Terrible

So you spent a few hundred dollars on an Apple Watch, but spending another $50 on a new band just seems excessive. There are third-party versions designed to look and feel nearly the same as the real thing, but are a quarter of the cost. Unfortunately, "nearly the same" isn't really all that accurate.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: In Early America, What Kind Of Entertainment Was A “Mud Show”?

Answer: Circus Long before the circus came to town aboard a winding train of shining train cars, it came by wagon. In early America, small traveling circuses were referred to as "mud shows" as a result. Why a mud show?

Source: How-To Geek

How to Set Up Network File Sharing on macOS, Without Sharing Your Username and Password

Sharing files over the network is convenient, but not without risks. If you leave permissions open, anyone on the network can see all of your files, which isn't ideal on large networks. But if you lock things down you'll have to share your Mac's user account with anyone who needs access to the files.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Make Your Echo Show Play a Sound When You Say “Alexa”

By default, when you say "Alexa" near the Echo Show, it displays a blue line on a screen. If you'd prefer something a bit more obvious, you can make your Echo Show play a sound every time you invoke it. [contentadsense] Alexa can make a little dinging noise when you start talking to Alexa and once you've finished your request.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Roll Back to iOS 10 (If You’re Using the iOS 11 Beta)

So you’ve installed the iOS 11 beta and, well, you don’t love it. No problem, because you can roll right back to iOS 10.

Source: How-To Geek

Surge Protectors vs. UPS: Do You Really Need a Battery Backup for Your PC?

Most PC users understand that a power surge, blackout, or other sudden loss of electricity has the capacity to seriously hurt your computer. But exactly what one should do to protect against it gets a little fuzzier.

Source: How-To Geek

What Is Web Bluetooth?

Generally speaking, most of us think of Bluetooth as a simple, device-to-device to connection used to do things like play music or other audio (speakers/headsets), offer quick notification access (smartwatches), or perform other tasks.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Make Your iPhone 7’s Home Button Click “Feel” Different

The Home Button on the iPhone 7 isn’t really a button. It’s a circular touch and force sensitive area which, thanks to the Taptic Engine, feels like a button that clicks.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Find Out Why Your Windows PC Crashed or Froze

Computers crash and freeze. Your Windows PC may have automatically rebooted itself, too. If so, it probably experienced a blue screen of death when you weren't looking.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Manually Remove Programs from the Windows Uninstall Program List

If there's a program lingering on your Windows "Add or Remove Programs" list that doesn't belong, there are two easy tricks you and use to purge it from the list and tidy things up. The "Add or Remove Programs" list shows all the installed software on your Windows computer.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Use Your Amazon Echo as an Intercom with Drop In

The Amazon Echo always seemed like a perfect device to use as an intercom within your house. This is now a reality, as Amazon has released its "Drop In" feature on all Echo devices.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Which Of These Streaming Services Originally Cost A Dollar An Hour?

Answer: Netflix If you're a young adult that came of age when Netflix was primarily a streaming service (and maybe sort of a DVD rental service), it might surprise you to learn that the limitless buffet of streaming video you've come to know and love wasn't so limitless just a short while ago.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Edit Your Mac’s Hosts File From System Preferences

It's a time-honored hack: editing the hosts file on your computer to block websites, create local re-directs, and otherwise change what happens when you type particular domains into you address bar.

Source: How-To Geek

The Best Rhythm Games That Use Your Local Music Collection

You can't have video games without music. Well, you can---the earliest games didn't have music in the strictest sense, just beeps and boops.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Set Up and Use Google Photos’ New Shared Libraries

Back at Google I/O 2017, Google announced a new feature in Google Photos called "Shared Libraries". In a nutshell, this allows users to quickly and easily share photos with other, specific users automatically.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Test if Your ISP is Throttling Your Internet Connection

We've all heard the rumors, and even seen occasional evidence. Some Internet service providers slow down certain types of traffic, like BitTorrent traffic. Other ISPs slow down their customers' connections if they download too much data in a month.

Source: How-To Geek

Why Is the Advanced Attributes Button Sometimes Replaced By an Archive Checkbox?

If you have ever checked the properties of files and folders, you may have noticed that the attributes section sometimes displays an advanced button, but at other times it displays an archive checkbox. Why does it switch back and forth like that?

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Color Changing Structures Found In Chameleons, Squids, And Other Creatures Are Called?

Answer: Chromatophores Of all the phenomena in the animal kingdom, very little has delighted humankind so consistently through the ages as the color changing and camouflaging abilities of creatures around the world---as far back as 400 BC, ancient scholars, like Aristotle, were already noting the ability of cephalopods, for example, to chang…

Source: How-To Geek

How to Mute Tweets with Specific Words on Twitter

Twitter can be a bit of a shouting match. Some accounts that you follow for their insightful view on tech insist on holding utterly disgusting, ignorant, regressive 16th century views on… Canadian hockey.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Get iOS’ Autocorrect to Work in Multiple Languages

Not everyone speaks only one language. Maybe you learned Spanish in school, or your parents are from Germany. Whatever the reason, it’s really annoying when you’re trying to send a text in a language other than English and autocorrect keeps trying to change “boire” to “Boise”. Nobody goes to a bar and orders a small American city.

Source: How-To Geek

Everything Amazon’s Echo Show Can Do That Other Echos Can’t

The Echo Show's handy 7" screen makes it stand apart from all the other Amazon Echo products.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Take Photos of Fireworks

There’s nothing like a loud bang and a bright flash of light to really make an occasion feel special. New Year’s Eve, Halloween, and of course, the Fourth of July are all celebrated with fireworks. They’re a pretty tricky subject to photograph, though, so let’s break down what you need to know.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Ensure Your Amazon Echo’s “Drop In” Feature Is Completely Disabled

Not everyone is excited about Amazon's "Drop In" intercom-like feature. But Amazon enables it by default---even if you choose "Later" at the splash screen. So here's how to turn it off entirely.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Share Access to Your Netgear Arlo Cameras

More than likely, you have multiple people living in your household. If you have Arlo cameras set up around your house, it would be beneficial to share that access with other family members. Here's how to set it up.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: The Best Selling Single-Cylinder Car Of All Time Was The?

Answer: BMW Isetta Microcars are a fascinating bit of automotive history.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Try the macOS High Sierra Beta Right Now

Excited about High Sierra, but don't want to wait until autumn? The public beta is now available to try; here's how to install it.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Turn Off YouTube Restricted Mode On Your Echo Show (So Videos Aren’t Missing From Search Results)

The Echo Show lets anyone start playing YouTube videos on its small display. If you have little ones in the house, you might not want them watching everything you can find on YouTube. To fix this, the Echo Show comes with YouTube Restricted Mode enabled out of the box that filters adult content.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Install the iOS 11 Beta on Your iPhone or iPad

The public beta of iOS 11 is now available for iPhones and iPads. Anyone who wants to play with iOS 11's new features can install it today. However, we recommend backing up your device first so you can easily restore the stable version of iOS 10 afterwards.

Source: How-To Geek

The Best Wireless VR Setups, Current and Upcoming

Virtual reality is the next big thing in digital gaming...and this time it might even stick around.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Connect the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con or Pro Controllers to Your PC

The Joy-Con and Pro Controllers for the Nintendo Switch work just like modern Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers. They support Bluetooth, so you can pair them with your PC without any special hardware. There's one catch here: The two Joy-Cons are seen as separate controllers by your PC.

Source: How-To Geek

How Good Are Smartphone Cameras?

Smartphone cameras have never been better. The technology has come a long way. They’ve been used by professional photographers to shoot magazine covers. Apple has built a billboard advertising campaign around photos taken with the iPhone.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: One Of The Plot Lines Of Which Of These Animated Films Was Based On A Real Conspiracy?

Answer: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? One of the central plot lines of the critically acclaimed 1988 animated/live-action hybrid film Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a plot by Judge Doom, played by Christopher Lloyd, to buy out and destroy Toontown (so that he can build a giant freeway through its location) and dismantle the streetcar company…

Source: How-To Geek

The Best Linux Distributions for Beginners

If you want to try Linux, you'll need to choose a Linux distribution. There are hundreds of different Linux distributions, but some are better to start with than others.

Source: How-To Geek

Geek Trivia: Which Of These Animals Plays The Most Significant Role In The Seeding Of North American Forests?

Answer: Gray Squirrels There's a long standing belief that squirrels carefully hoard nuts and seeds for the winter and recall, with some sort of exquisitely fine-tuned for-the-task memory exactly where all those thousands of nuts and seeds are buried.

Source: How-To Geek

How to Record a Phone Call on an iPhone

So you've decided you need to record a phone call. Maybe you're performing a delicate sting operation...or maybe you just want to make sure you're getting the best customer service possible. Whatever your reasons, things are a little difficult on an iPhone.

Source: How-To Geek