More and more, people are starting to discover that tablets make decent productivity tools. With devices like the Microsoft Surface and iPad Pro becoming more popular, you may be looking to create something similar with your Android device. With a Bluetooth keyboard, it’s simple. Here’s how to connect one, and everything you can do with it. How to Pair Your Keyboard Setting up a Bluetooth keyboard with Android is very easy....
Color is one of the most important aspects of photography. It can make or break your images. It’s great when nature gives you great color to work with, but you also need to deliberately manipulate colors in your photos, both while you’re shooting and in post-processing. One of the best ways to start experimenting with colors in your image is to use a limited color palette. In other words, to try and take images where there are only one or two dominant colors....
Wi-Fi cameras rely on infrared (IR) for night vision. But IR bounces off glass—so, if you’re using your camera behind a window, you’ll only see a blurry reflection at night. Here’s how to get a clear image. Night Vision and Window Panes Don’t Mix Night vision on most Wi-Fi cameras uses a relatively simple trick of physics. One or more IR LEDs blast out as much light as possible, acting as a floodlight....
If you’re using the free and open source LibreOffice suite of programs, your word processor is probably way more powerful than it needs to be. Writer has at least as many standard features as the paid Microsoft Word, and getting more acquainted with some of them can help dramatically streamline your workflow. In other words, spend a little time setting stuff up and you’ll fly through your documents like a 60WPM Superman....
Whether you’re at work and forgot some file on your home computer, want to play some music on a train, or just want to move some files between your computers, accessing your files from anywhere is a life saver. What we are going to do is download and install Hamachi, setup a network name and password and then join the network from another computer. Still think it’s hard? Here’s a detailed how-to, but first let’s get to know Hamachi....
Most home networks rarely have one single type of client connecting to it. Usually, there’s a blend of Windows, Android, iOS, and maybe even Macs. How do you keep all these clients connected while keeping younger users out of trouble? We’ve talked about OpenDNS in past articles and just recently, we discussed the possibilities of using your router for basic parental controls. In that article, we mentioned that our example router actually defers to OpenDNS as its designated “parental controls”....
Mobile Safari—the web browser on your iPhone and iPad—has a number of privacy features you might not be using, like blocking all cookies and preventing cross site tracking. Let’s look at what options are available and how to enable them. You’ll find Safari’s various Privacy and Security features in one place. Just head to Settings > Safari, and then scroll down to the “Privacy & Security” section. You’ll find six settings here:...
Not to be outdone by other terrible PC manufacturers, HP has been quietly, remotely installing a telemetry service known as “HP Touchpoint Manager” on its PCs since at least November 15, 2017. It’s sending data back to HP, introducing security holes, and generally bogging PCs down. What HP Touchpoint Manager Does, and Why You Probably Don’t Want It RELATED: How to Check if Your HP Laptop Has the Conexant Keylogger...
Can’t get to sleep? You might as well pick up your phone and scroll through Instagram for a bit, then maybe Facebook, and what was that blog with the funny pictures you used to look at back in the day, does it still exist? Oh yeah there’s like five years of updates here, let’s scroll through that for a bit, just one more page of posts, and…it’s morning. If this is you, there’s a solution: stop bringing your phone to bed....
Windows 11 lets you choose your default browser, but it takes a lot of clicks and Microsoft sometimes forces you to use Edge, anyway. Firefox had a workaround, but Microsoft calls it “improper” and will soon block it. The upcoming Windows Update won’t block you from changing the default browser in Windows 11. The patch will force links using the microsoft-edge protocol to always open in Edge. These are specific links opened through Windows 11, such as those directly from the taskbar’s search feature....
Maybe you’ve heard it before: “Security is a myth.” It’s become a common refrain after a never-ending string of high-profile security breaches. If Fortune 500 companies with million dollar security budgets can’t lock things down, how can you? And there’s truth to this: perfect security is a myth. No matter what you do, no matter how careful you are, you will never be 100 percent safe from hackers, malware, and cybercrime....
In the Spirit of Wii Sports Switch Sports features six sports at launch, some of which will be very familiar to those who enjoyed the original game on the Wii. These are bowling, tennis, badminton, soccer, volleyball, and chambara. Bowling and tennis are the two sports most Wii veterans will be most familiar with, and they operate just like they always did. Chambara is a new sport that’s reminiscent of the Swordplay Duel from Wii Sports Resort....
It’s odd that, given their booming popularity among all kinds of computer users, mechanical keyboards still have so few wireless options. Between gamers, computing purists, and pragmatists, there doesn’t seem to be much desire for Bluetooth mechanical boards. But if you’d like a mobile-friendly keyboard, or just a more aesthetically pleasing one for your desktop, there are a handful of options out there. RELATED: The Best Keyboards of 2022...
The iPhone’s 3D Touch is one of its more underrated features. There are the obvious big things it can do, like Peek and Pop, but there are also loads of little uses that you probably haven’t heard of. Let’s take a look at some of them. 3D Touch is Apple’s pressure sensitive touch feature available on the iPhone 6S, 7, 8, X, and their equivalent Plus models. When you press harder on the screen, iOS detects it and can do something different than if you’d just tapped; for example, it can show you a list of Quick Actions rather than open the app....
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?...
What Is an IPS Display? To understand Nano IPS displays, it helps to have an idea about the IPS or In-Plane Switching displays. IPS is one of the three main liquid crystal display (LCD) technologies, alongside VA and TN displays. The primary difference between IPS and other LCDs is how the liquid crystals shift in their display stack when an electric current is applied. This difference in the rotation of liquid crystals gives IPS displays some advantages....
Sound vs. Graphics Hardware Your computer’s built-in sound is pretty good for most tasks. Contrast that with gaming, where if you want to play the newest AAA games at high frame rates, you need a graphics card. A CPU’s integrated graphics processor simply isn’t up to the challenge. Nevertheless, some people still want better sound than a motherboard can offer. When that’s the case, it comes down to two primary choices: a sound card or an external DAC (digital-to-analog converter)....
Cryptojacking is the hot new way for criminals to make money using your hardware. A website you have open in your browser can max out your CPU to mine cryptocurrency, and cryptojacking malware is becoming increasingly common. What Is Cryptojacking? Cryptojacking is an attack where the attacker runs cryptocurrency-mining software on your hardware without your permission. The attacker keeps the cryptocurrency and sells it for a profit, and you get stuck with high CPU usage and a hefty electricity bill....
What Is a Virtual Private Server? A VPS is a small, simulated server that runs virtually on an existing one. Like any virtual machine, it’s separate from its host and operates as an independent entity, yet can’t exist away from its host, either. The tech behind VPS is similar to other virtual machines: the host machine runs a program called a hypervisor or VMM (virtual machine manager) which manages all the smaller virtual machines under it, called guests....
The idea of a home page has kind of fallen by the wayside with modern browsers, what with their auto-recall tabs and syncing across devices. But it doesn’t help that Chrome, arguably the most popular browser on full desktop operating systems, isn’t entirely clear on exactly what your home page is. This can be especially frustrating if your home page changes without your knowledge. The Difference Between the Home Page and the New Tab Page For some reason, Chrome makes a distinction between the New Tab page (the address that opens when launch Chrome, open a new window, or open new tab) and the Home Page (the address that opens when you press the Home button in Chrome or on your keyboard)....
