While not technically a “new” feature, the Safety Check in Chrome is something you might not know exists. Find out if you have potentially harmful extensions installed if you remembered to enable Safe Browsing, and more. If Chrome is your browser of choice, it’s good to take advantage of the tools Google provides for safer browsing. Here’s how to perform a Safety Check in Chrome with this built-in feature....
On the Windows 8 Desktop, adding the classic Control Panel as a shortcut on the Desktop is easy. Just open Personalization, click “Change Desktop Icons” and check Control Panel. Adding it to the Taskbar isn’t as easy as doing a drag and drop. In fact, you simply can’t. Instead, you need to go through the process of creating a new shortcut and pointing it to Control Panel. The process is similar to pinning the Recycle Bin to the Taskbar....
Add Your Music to Spotify Launch the Spotify desktop app and head to Menu > Edit > Preferences. Then scroll down the settings page and turn on the “Show Local Files” switch. After turning it on, you will see a few other options including showing songs from your “Downloads” and “Music Library” folder. Another helpful option is a “Add a Source” button. The option to add other sources is helpful for those of us who store media on secondary drives or network locations....
If you set up a Pattern Lock on your Android device, then you’ll know why we wrote this how-to. The Android operating system doesn’t have a timeout attached to the pattern lock feature, this means that every time your screen turns off your phone will become instantly locked. This becomes so annoying that most people will opt to not even use the Pattern lock. Let’s fix it the easy way, with a free app!...
Stop Windows 10 Pro from Automatically Updating Drivers If you are running Windows 10 Pro, stopping driver updates is an easy process. Hit Windows key + R and type: gpedit.msc and hit Enter or click OK to open Local Group Policy Editor. Then head to the following path: Then double-click on “Do not include drivers with Windows Update” under the Settings list on the right. Now set the option to Enabled and click OK and close out of Group Policy Editor and restart your PC for the changes to take effect....
Steve, I changed the name in the ownership. How do I change the computer name? The process has not changed from Windows XP days through Windows 8 (those instructions are lower in the article). But the process has changed in Windows 10. Don’t forget you need to be logged in with an account that has Administrator rights. These steps also assume your computer is a member of a Workgroup or standalone, and not a Windows Domain/Active Directory (Corporate Network....
But no. That would get you fired. And there is a way–a non-destructive, unembarrassing way, using your own computer– to take a stand for individuality, something that declares I am not simply a corporate flunky! That something is an animated cursor. Not the few token animated pointers Microsoft buries in Windows. But some wild, passionate cursors like we tell you how to find in Animated Cursors Give Relief to Overworked Eyes....
In this article I’m using Windows 7. You’ll need a Blu-ray optical drive. They’re the same size as a DVD drive. You can easily swap a DVD drive with a Blu-ray drive on your desktop computer. Not only will it play Blu-ray discs, but also DVDs and CDs. I found mine on Newegg.com for under $100. First download and install the latest version of DVDFab. It lets you remove Sony’s proprietary copy protection on Blu-ray discs....
If you are running Android 2.2 (Froyo), toggling the 3G network connection for your phone is quick and simple. You can significantly improve battery life, with the only catch being that you’ll need to reconnect before you check emails or your Google Voice. If your home, work, or car has a WiFi connection then you can always set your phone to connect to that as well. I’ve found that the WiFi connection uses about half as much battery as the 3G one....
Disappearing WhatsApp Messages There are a few things we should clear up first. If you think that this will turn WhatsApp into some kind of Snapchat replacement, think again. WhatsApp (which has a dark theme now) has approached the issue differently. Namely, once you enable the feature, WhatsApp messages will disappear after an interval of seven days. This will happen whether the messages are sent to a person or a group....
Go to Settings on your iOS device. Tap on General. Under General, go to Passcode Lock. You will have to enter your passcode. Now, you can select Turn Passcode off. This is more ideal on an iPad, because most of us keep them at home or may not lose it as easily as we do a smartphone. For my iPhone, I prefer to go to Require Passcode and set it for After 1 Hour....
The reason Xbox One doesn’t come with native disc playback support is the same reason it’s not in Windows 10 for the desktop. Microsoft killed off DVD playback support several years back with Windows 8, citing the global decline of physical media sales and the rise in popularity of video streaming services. We’ve shown you how to bring DVD and Blu-ray playback for Windows 10, and here we’ll show you how to do the same with your Xbox One console....
That small difference was enough to make me pay for a premium RTM membership for a year. But now my membership is up and I don’t feel like shelling out again for RTM. So I cooked up this workaround that helps me see which day of the week my Toodledo items are due. Basically, what I do is organize my tasks by context and ignore the folders (which I was doing anyway)....
Split Microsoft Excel Data The most obvious example of when you might want to split Microsoft Excel Data from one column to more is when names are involved. In the following two examples, the first and last names are in the same cells, but we want to change this to two. Text to Columns Using the Microsoft Excel Text to Columns tool, we want to take the first and last names listed in column A and split the information into two new columns, B and C....
Now don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great tool however, like any powerful tool – if your not educated on its use, it can go from being a useful tool to a dangerous one. I’ve talked about this in the past and yes, facial tagging is a bit of a sore subject with me due to the wide-open terms of service agreements being used by Facebook, Google and a few others published by the largest social media sites out there....
How to Translate Word Documents Before we begin, note that you’ll need to be connected to the internet for the translation service to work. When you receive a foreign language document, you can easily convert all or parts of the document into your native language. Below is a document in Spanish about airports. That’s about all I know, so we will translate it to know what it says in my native language, English....
Disable Suggested Apps Windows 10 Start Menu There are a couple of ways to turn off or manage these suggested apps. If you see one, right-click on it and select an option from the context menu. If you don’t want to see the app being displayed, select Don’t show this suggestion.To completely turn off the Suggested apps section, select Turn off all suggestions. The other way to get rid of Suggested apps is to head to Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off “Occasionally show suggestions in Start....
Earlier we talked about some of the highlights in the new Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) beta, and many gave it a try. But, IE9 is still in beta so if you need a stable web browser then IE9 is still not an option. Normally uninstalling a program on your computer is simple, however in the case of IE9 you can’t uninstall it. What this guide will cover is reverting back to Internet Explorer 8....
But what if you just need a simple way to locate specific data? Filters in Excel give you easy ways to find the data you want. Especially useful in data-heavy spreadsheets, filters can be quickly applied and just as easily removed when you’re finished with them. Data for Filters in Excel Filters in Excel apply to columns. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use a filter if you don’t include an entire column....
Step 1 – Opening Picasa 3 Although you can upload and begin editing your photos directly from your browser using the Picasa Web Albums site, I keep all my photos organized on my system using the Windows Picasa client from Google. The client is great, and you can sync your photos up to Picasa Web Albums quickly, which makes it perfect for managing home photos and displaying them on the Internet (securely of course....
