Since upgrading to Windows 7 or Vista from Windows XP, one thing I’ve missed is the ease of accessing and configuring your Network Adapters/Connections settings. You know, enabling a NIC or configuring an adapter for a static IP, etc. – sure you can still get there by navigating through the Network and Sharing Center. But the extra clicks do get old fast if managing your network adapters is something you often do....

Paint 3D Reference Guide This reference guide is intended to help get you up and running with Paint 3D quickly and answer some commonly asked questions of first-time users. It’s not exhaustive, however, so if you have a question that’s not answered in this guide, please leave a comment, and we will do our best to get answers for you and update our guide for other readers. How do I launch Paint 3D?...

In addition to an amazing price and monthly plan, Republic Wireless also sent a $100 coupon out to those who signed up for advanced notifications via its website. $120 for a phone and unlimited mobile plan. Now that’s groovy! Full details on the plan and the phone should be posted on the RepublicWireless.com site tomorrow. It should be very interesting to see if Republic Wireless can pull this off in the long-term and truly disrupt the larger carriers in key markets....

The Samsung Galaxy S3 (pictured above) wass just released in May, but things have to move fast if Samsung plans for the new smartphone to help it in the fight against Apple, a fight that’s being carried both on the market as off — like in courtrooms. According to the Korea Times, quoting an unnamed Samsung official, the company is planning to show the Samsung Galaxy S4 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next year in February....

Save Google Maps for Offline Use Available just for the Android version at the moment, the feature has been added in another update, after users had been complaining that the new Maps app made things complicated from this point of view. Google listened and now has made it much easier to save a map. Go to the area you on the map that you want to save. Then when it’s showing on your tablet or smartphone screen, click the search bar....

Here’s how to stop videos from automatically playing in Microsoft Edge. Stop Edge from Autoplaying Videos To get started, enter the following into the address bar: edge://flags/ Then search for “autoplay” and change the “Show block option in autoplay settings” flag to Enabled. For the change to go into effect you will need to restart Edge by clicking the Restart button. After Edge restarts the next step is to type the following into the address bar: edge://settings/content/mediaAutoplay Now set the “Control if audio and video play automatically on sites” to Block....

Update: This article was originally written for the Anniversary Update which was released in 2016. Currently, the best way to get a new update is to wait for Microsoft to send it to your system via Windows Update. But you can also manually update Windows 10 by using an ISO with the Media Creation Tool. What is the Windows 10 Anniversary Update? The Windows 10 Anniversary Update is the latest revision of Microsoft’s client operating system....

Note: The Fire OS interface has been updated since this article was initially released. The interface on your device may vary, but the idea and concept of the steps are virtually the same. The UI may look slightly different. Get Started with Hands-Free Alexa One of the most notable new features is Hands-Free Alexa. This allows you to use Alexa as you would on the Echo devices with only voice commands....

Fix a Broken Windows 10 installation Incompatible applications are a common reason why Windows 10 installations might be broken after upgrading. Users have reported being unable to open the Start menu, or the desktop will flicker, antivirus utilities are notorious for this. You can try uninstalling them, then reinstall a compatible version or switch to the built-in Windows Defender. If the Start menu is inaccessible after an upgrade, press Windows key + X then click Programs and Features, select your incompatible Antivirus utility then uninstall it....

For the past year or so, I’ve been begrudgingly bouncing from app to app for Twitter — The official Twitter app, Twittelator, and Twitterrific to name a few. Each had their own separate issues: The official app is frequently buggy and crashes in addition to having an odd user interface. Twittelator looks unpolished and Twitterrific has no option to specifically search for users. Tweetbot, on the other hand, is beautifully designed, uncluttered, is fluid to use and has all of the features you’d ever in a Twitter client....

One problem, right now anyway, is you have to hunt and peck your way through signing in to music and video subscription services. For whatever reason, the Apple Remote app for iOS doesn’t work with the new TV. That’s something I covered in my article: My First Impressions of the New Apple TV. I wrote that article on October 31st, and it still doesn’t work at the time of this writing....

Some Helpouts, such as Weight Watchers, are available for free. Many other large companies are jumping on the band wagon and offering free Helpouts designed for classroom-like audiences. However most hangouts are provided by individuals and have a reasonable price tag attached. For people that are forgetful The default Helpout settings record each session and allow users who purchased it to replay the session at their leisure. A quick look at the consumer agreement reveals that Google includes a 100% Money Back Guarantee which states that if a Helpout wasn’t helpful it can be contested and ran through Google’s quality assurance desk to determine whether or not a refund will be granted....

Shared With You Think about the content you’ve received through text over the years. Do you know how to find that content? Sure, you could spend the time and scroll through the messages or do a quick search hoping to find that awesome photo or recipe link you remember from long ago. But, unfortunately, those are both tedious processes that don’t often lead to success. It’s here where Shared With You comes in....

Microsoft created WmiPRvSE.exe and loads it as an integral part of Windows. A virus can sometimes hijack or imitate WmiPRvSE.exe, but those vulnerabilities haven’t been exploited on a mass scale in recent years. What is WmiPrvSE? WmiPrvSE is the acronym for Windows Management Instrumentation Provider Service. Or, as the description in Task Manager mentions, it is a WMI Provider Host. A look through the process strings in Process Explorer reveals WmiPrvSE as part of Microsoft’s Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) system and the Common Information Model (CIM) Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM, which is now known as SCOM [System Center Operations Manager....

The main reason I’m interested in the Startup folder is that it provides one of the easiest ways to make a program start when you log in to Windows. All it takes is for you to drop a shortcut to your favorite installed program into the folder. Here’s how to find it. In Windows 8, the Startup folder can be found using Windows Explorer, but it is hidden. To get there, do a search for %appdata% and click the Roaming link that appears....

Wear OS has seemed to stop being one of Google’s concerns at one point. However, with the search engine giant’s purchase of Fitbit, it’s easy to see that wearable devices are very much on Google’s radar. Aside from that, there a lot of manufacturers that keep on using it on their smartwatches, coupled with their custom improvements. With that said, onto the reasons mentioned why a Wear OS smartwatch might need to be on your shopping list....

The company points out that there are no new OS features or security patches, but it does contain a lot of bug fixes and performance improvements. Here’s a look at installing the update and what you can expect. Windows 10 Cumulative Update KB3140724 Microsoft recently launched a new Windows 10 Update History page and will start showing the changelogs of each update, something that Windows 10 users have wanted for a long time now....

Fortunately for all of us IT family members, Microsoft has included a built-in tool for recording the exact step-by-step actions along with screenshots as the person with the issue walks through the problem. Let’s take a close look at how to use the Windows 7 Problem Steps Recorder! How To Record Your Step By Step Problem Information In Windows 7 Click the Windows Start Menu Orb and then type in record steps and click the Record Steps to reproduce a problem control panel link....

In the third part of our series on Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011 (Wave 4), we’ll be showing you some of the editing features that are built into Windows Live Photo Gallery. While the basic adjustments and visual effects that you can apply to your photos won’t come anywhere near the sheer Photoshopping might of professional photo editing software, for a free program intended for casual sorting, organizing, publishing and printing of photos, the features included in Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011 are fairly groovy....

This time last year, Microsoft and partners Dell, LG, Samsung and HTC rolled out the first Windows Phone 7 devices. You could smell the disappointment. Easily a generation behind competing Apple iOS, Google Android or even the BlackBerry QNX platforms, Windows Phone 7 floundered about from day one. No wonder most developers all but ignored it. Playing catch up, Microsoft is rolling out a beefy update to the system, Windows Phone 7....