While not necessary for everyone, VPNs can be a crucial tool for online safety—especially if you use public Wi-Fi a lot. There are tons of one-click solutions out there that make it really easy to hit a toggle and activate a VPN, but for the most robust options, manual setup is key. Here’s how to do it on Chrome OS. Use an Android App (The Easiest Solution) If your Chromebook has access to Android apps and is running Chrome OS version 64 or higher, good news: Android VPN apps now work system-wide....

The Echo Spot makes for a great bedside alarm clock with Alexa built in, but if you’re a little wary of a camera pointing directly at your bed, here’s how to disable it completely. There are a couple of ways to disable the camera on the Echo Spot. Perhaps the quickest and easiest way is by hitting the mute button on the top of the device in between the two volume buttons....

The “Sets” feature in Windows 10’s Redstone 5 update makes tabs appear alongside windows in the Alt+Tab switcher. Even Microsoft Edge browser tabs appear in Alt+Tab. But you can hide these tabs and restore the classic Alt+Tab behavior, instead. The Redstone 5 update is currently available in Insider Preview form. It will be released sometime in Fall 2018 and will be named something else—probably the “October 2018 Update” or “November 2018 Update....

Freezing a single row is easy, but what if you want to freeze multiple rows at the top of your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet? Luckily, there’s an option to do that, too, and we’ll show you how to use it. Once you freeze your rows, those rows will stick to the top of your spreadsheet and won’t move when you scroll down your spreadsheet. RELATED: How to Freeze and Unfreeze Rows and Columns in Excel...

The Kwikset Kevo smart lock comes with a clever design that lets you simply touch the lock to unlock it—but that’s not the only feature that makes it so great. Here’s how to get the most out of our Kevo smart lock. Use Your Previous Key with the Kevo RELATED: How to Re-Key Your Kwikset SmartKey Lock to Your Previous Key Buying a new lock requires using new keys. You could hire a locksmith to change the lock pin pattern of the deadbolt to match your old keys, but most of the time it’s not worth the trouble....

In case you haven’t heard, Twitter is testing out a longer 280-character message limit, doubling the restriction that’s been in place since the service started back in 2006. Initially, the longer limit is only available to a few select accounts during the testing period, but intrepid users have discovered how to access the new feature. UPDATE: Sorry readers, it looks like Twitter has decided to spoil our fun. The mechanism for the 280-character tweet functionality below has been patched out....

Google Docs is a great platform for collaboration, allowing you to remotely and simultaneously work with others on the documents you create. You can add comments to documents, but once you’re done, you can hide or remove comments in a few different ways. A user can add, remove, or accept comments to a Google Docs document, but only if they have the permission to do so. If a user has been given access to a Google Docs document with “commenter” or “editor” permissions, they should have the required permissions to follow these steps....

For a while, Facebook thought I was into basketball. Almost every ad was for something to do with basketball. The thing is, I’m not sure Ireland even has a basketball team. We certainly don’t have a professional one and I’ve never watched a game in my life. It was a confusing phase of my digital life and it took a few months before I started seeing relevant ads again....

By default, Windows 10 asks you to create a Microsoft account when you log in to Windows for the first time. But if you’d prefer to use an email that you actually use for, you know, email, that’s an option too. Windows 10 accepts new non-Microsoft email accounts on setup, and you can create a new Windows user with any email account. Doing this will get you most of the benefits of using a Microsoft account—like syncing your settings between Windows PCs....

The top utility displays current CPU usage for each running process, but what if you wanted to monitor this over time and display it on a graph? There are a few utilities for this if your cloud provider doesn’t have one already. As a side note, if you don’t have it installed already, the htop utility (pictured above) is a lot nicer to use than default top. The Trivial Solution: Use Your Cloud Provider’s Graphs This solution is by far the easiest to use, but it won’t be available for everyone....

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. Nobody wants to see this kind of thing in their Twitter timeline, but Justin occasionally has a good take on tech. Thankfully, by blocking specific words from your timeline, you can get one without the other: you can get the books reviews without the politics, the awesome art without the recipes, and even the tech takes without the hockey....

When it comes to “regular” wristwatches, a lot of people have different watches for different activities. It makes sense—a sporty watch for the gym, a nicer watch for the office, and a casual watch for everything else. If you want to live this life with Android Wear, hooking up multiple watches to your main phone is a breeze. So, go ahead and pop that watch out of its box, fire it up, and let’s do this thing....

Upgrade to Windows 8 or 10 and you may be surprised to find that you can no longer play video DVDs or Blu-ray. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 8 and 10 don’t include built-in support for playing DVDs. Microsoft opted not to include DVD support because so many new computers – especially tablets and ultrabooks – aren’t coming with DVD drives. Microsoft pays a licensing fee for each copy of Windows that ships with DVD support....

Typing passwords is for suckers, which is why the best part of the latest MacBook Pro is Touch ID. Skipping the lock screen with a quick tap is easily my favorite feature. But there’s one place that still requires a password: the Terminal, if you want to use sudo. Happily, a tweet by Cabel Sasser showed us how to use Touch ID there as well, and it only takes a minute to set up....

If you’ve ever posted a highly-favorited tweet or been part of a popular thread, you’ve probably known the mild annoyance of having your phone overflow with dozens of notifications for retweets and favorites. If this behavior is affecting your enjoyment of Twitter (you social media wizard, you), you’ll probably want to restrict those notifications. On Twitter’s Mobile App We’re using the iOS Twitter app here, but these instructions should work whether you’re using Twitter on Android or iOS....

The HomePod isn’t just a pretty speaker. You can also perform a few tasks with it, like set alarms and timers. Here’s how. RELATED: How to Set Up the Apple HomePod Before you get started, keep in mind that alarms and timers on the HomePod aren’t nearly as customizable as they are with Alexa and Google Assistant. It’s pretty barebones compared to other smart speakers, but it’ll a good job if all you want is basic functionality....

Things to Be Aware Of So here’s the thing: you can set something other than Google Assistant as your default digital assistant, but you can’t invoke it using your voice—saying “OK Google” still brings up Google Assistant. The same rule applies to the squeeze function on Pixel 2 phones. What changing the setting does do, however, is make it so that long-pressing the home button brings up Alexa instead of the Google Assistant....

Having your server send you emails is a simple way to get notifications from bash scripts, applications, and cron jobs. Command line email works similarly to personal email, and is easy to configure and use. How Does Command Line Email Work? When email is traveling down the tubes of the Internet, it’s usually being sent over the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, or SMTP. The server that handles sending mail is called an SMTP server, and many free email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, etc....

If you have a large number of worksheets in your Excel workbook, it may be hard to find a specific worksheet. Sorting your worksheet tabs alphabetically would make it easier to find what your looking for. RELATED: How to Rename Worksheet Tabs in Excel In addition to organizing your worksheet tabs by applying colors to them, you can also sort them alphabetically or alphanumerically, as long as you’ve applied custom names to your worksheets....

I’m a pretty big fan of Apple’s Live Photos that combine an image, video, and audio into a single file. Unfortunately, it can be a little awkward to share the full experience with anyone who doesn’t have an Apple device. You’ve always been able to convert them to still photos, but now, you can also turn them into animated GIFs to share anywhere. To do so, first take a Live Photo or find one you already have....