Fortunately, there are alternatives to Screen Time that are far better at tracking your screen time than Apple’s built-in tool. The Problem with the Screen Time App in Catalina In iOS, you cannot have more than two active “focused” apps onscreen at the same time, but that’s not the case on a Mac. Most people leave apps open in the background on their Mac without even noticing. Do you ever close your browser?...

Apple’s server software isn’t what it used to be. Once a considerable investment, these days macOS Server only sets you back $20, a bargain considering all the features you get. Or, at least, the features you used to get. Because with High Sierra, a bunch of features that were once exclusive to macOS Server are now bundled with macOS itself. From Time Machine folders to content caching, a lot of useful features have become free and built-in....

Audiobooks a la Carte Audible is geared to be a subscription-based audiobook platform, though you can purchase books individually. The $7.95 “Plus” plan and a $14.95 “Premium Plus” plans both give you unlimited access to audiobooks in the “Plus” catalog, but you still need to purchase “credits” for titles that aren’t included. Spotify’s audiobooks are offered a la carte, meaning you only purchase what you want when you want it. There’s no monthly subscription or catalog of audiobooks you can listen to for free, and there are no discounts for Premium subscribers....

Slack is most known as a glorified chatroom app for workplaces, but it’s also a great tool for individuals. Here’s how I use Slack as my own personal assistant of sorts. There are a ton of Slack apps to choose from that help you organize your life and generally make things easier—reminder apps, to-do apps, notes apps, you name it. And if a combination of those apps works great for you, then that’s awesome....

Everyone’s seen the horror stories. Someone placed an Internet connected camera in their home and left it open to attack, allowing strangers to eavesdrop on their most private moments. Here’s how to pick a camera that guarantees your privacy. Watch Out for IP Cameras Most of the scary stories you see online about insecure cameras are about IP cameras. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with IP cameras. These are simply security cameras that connect to the network, either over Wi-Fi or a wired Ethernet connection....

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. Open Snapchat and take a photo Snap as normal. Backdrops only work with images for the time being. In the top right, select the Scissors tool. After that, select Backdrops. It’s the third option down....

USB Storage Requirements Most USB hard drives and SSDs will work as extended storage for a PS5. However, they need to conform to several minimum requirements: Sized between 250GB and 8TB. USB 3 with at least 5Gbps throughput. The drive can’t be connected through a hub; this includes drives with an integrated hub that are wired internally through the hub. When you first connect your drive to the PS5, you’ll have to format it as Extended Storage....

If you made a mistake when typing in your bid, or if the description of the item drastically changed after you placed your bid, then eBay allows you to retract it. Here’s when and how you can cancel your bid. When You Can Cancel Your Bid eBay tries to protect both the buyer and seller from unfair actions on its platform. That said, you can’t always cancel your bid. For example, if there were 15 seconds left in an auction and you suddenly canceled your bid, that would be unfair for the seller (although the opposite of that, bid sniping, is allowed)....

Is your iPhone’s alarm volume too quiet or too loud for you? Whether you’re getting up at sunrise or just need a reminder, you can finetune the alarm so that you’ll never miss an alarm and also won’t be totally jarred by it. How to Adjust Alarm Volume on iPhone On your iPhone, first, open the Settings app. In Settings, scroll a bit down and tap “Sounds.” If you don’t have the “Sounds” option, tap “Sounds & Haptics” instead....

Do you often send emails to a specific set of people at once? By creating a contact group in Outlook, (formerly a distribution list) you can email all necessary recipients by simply entering the group name. We’ll show you how to create a distribution list in Outlook for Windows, Mac, and the web. How to Create an Email Group in Outlook on Windows To make an email group in Outlook on a Windows PC, launch the Outlook app on your computer....

When you’re using Linux, a popular way to share files with Windows is via Samba. For beginners, it can be a real pain to configure it manually, but with the right tool, it’s as easy as pie. Way back in 2007, we showed you how to install Samba on Ubuntu. Things haven’t changed much, except that there are more ways to configure it. If you don’t have Samba installed and you aren’t afraid of the command-line, just follow the first step in that article and rejoin us here for the rest....

Find your photo or album in your profile and hit the three-dot button or pencil icon. Choose “Delete Photo” or “Delete Album. ” When Facebook asks you to confirm, choose “Delete. ” Feeling embarrassed by that Facebook photo from your younger days? No worries, you can always delete any of your uploaded photos from Facebook. We’ll show you how. On Facebook, you can delete both your individual photos and your photo albums....

A 404 error occurs when you try to visit a web page that doesn’t exist. Sometimes, the problem is on the website itself, and there’s not much you can do about that. But sometimes, the problem is one you might be able to solve—maybe you typed the address wrong, or maybe your browser cache is causing problems. Here are some solutions you can try. What Is a 404 Error? Like we mentioned, you get a 404 error when the web page you’re trying to get to doesn’t exist....

If you recently added a new movie or TV show to Plex and it’s showing up incorrectly, there are a couple of things you can do to fix it. Here’s how to fix broken metadata in Plex for your movies and TV shows. With so many movie and TV reboots over the years, you’re bound to have something in your Plex library that doesn’t show up properly. For example, my copy of the original Cinderella movie was showing up as the newer remake from 2015....

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. Install the Big Sky Alexa Skill The initial setup process is a bit involved, but it’ll smooth sailing once you have everything set up and ready to go....

The full transcript of a YouTube video can be useful for a variety of reasons. You can avoid manually transcribing quotes by copying the direct text. It’s also handy to be able to search for specific words or parts of the video by text. How to Get YouTube Transcripts on Desktop On a desktop or laptop, head on over to YouTube.com in a web browser such as Google Chrome and open a video to watch....

The steps are the same for both iPhone and iPad. So, if you’re playing a game on your iPad that you want to pop up on the Roku, it’ll work just the same. Requirements for Mirroring iPhone to Roku In order to mirror your iPhone or iPad screen to your Roku device, you’ll need to enable AirPlay and Screen Mirroring on the Roku. RELATED: How to Use AirPlay on Roku...

Last year, for the first time in five years, the number of cameras sold actually increased. While I’ve got nothing other than personal anecdote to back it up, I suspect that people are loving taking photos on their smartphones so much that some of them are actually deciding to buy a dedicated camera. If you’re one of those people thinking about making the leap from using a smartphone to a camera, here’s what you need to know....

Does your Mac go to sleep at inopportune times? Would you like to keep it awake, but don’t want to install additional software? With this tiny little command line trick, you can keep your Mac awake for a specified durations or indefinitely. RELATED: How to Temporarily Prevent Your Mac from Sleeping In the past we’ve told you that you can use a handy little app called Caffeine to keep your Mac awake....

Microsoft’s Xbox One allows you to remap the buttons on its controller. This feature was originally introduced with Microsoft’s high-end Xbox One Elite controller, but it now works with standard Xbox One controllers as well. These instructions only apply to remapping buttons on an Xbox One controller connected to an Xbox One, not an Xbox One controller connected to a PC. If you have an Xbox One Elite controller, you can download the Xbox Accessories app from the Windows 10 Store and use it to remap the controller’s buttons when it’s connected to a PC, though....