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Android Oreo (8.1) automatically applies either a light or dark theme to the Quick Settings menu depending on your wallpaper. If you want a specific wallpaper and theme instead, there’s an easy way to force it. This is all thanks to a new app named LWP+. It’s essentially a custom live wallpaper that “tricks” Android into thinking the wallpaper is whatever color you set within the app while applying the wallpaper you actually see on top of that....

If you’re looking to get started with social media analytics, finding a service that lets you get a feel for how it works without having to pay a monthly fee can be a challenge. Here are some options to get started. First Things First: Use the Built-in Tools All the major players in the social scene have their own built-in analytics tools: Twitter, Facebook (for pages), Pinterest (for business accounts) and Instagram (for business profiles)....

Oh that sweet blue tick. Only a select few Twitter elite are awarded it—Justin Pot has one. The rest of us digital plebs are left go without, forever unverified. Or are we? A while back, Twitter introduced a way that anyone—even a up-to-no-good-writer like myself—could apply to be verified. Let’s look at how. Get Your Account in Order Before applying to be verified, you need to get your account in order....

Templates let you configure all the relevant settings you want pre-applied to documents—font settings, margins and tabs, boilerplate text, and so on. You just open the template and save it under a new name to get a jump start on a new document. If you’re a user of the popular, free, and open-source LibreOffice program suite, odds are decent that you’re doing so because you don’t want to use Microsoft Office....

To say that the Google Pixel 2’s displays have come under scrutiny would be an understatement. While most of the criticism has been overblown, there’s no arguing that the color calibration of the Pixel 2’s displays aren’t what we’re used to seeing. The “Problem”: People Apparently Don’t Like Realistic Colors By “what we’re used to seeing”, I mean that Google offers more realistic colors on the Pixel 2, which compared to all other mainstream phones, makes the displays look “muted” or “washed out....

If you’re anything like me, you love working on a big, beefy desktop PC with as many monitors as will fit on your big, beefy desk. And if you’re anything like me, it also drives you crazy when the colors and image settings on those monitors don’t match exactly. I won’t lie: getting your monitors to match each other is a tough chore, especially if they’re from multiple manufacturers or product lines....

Your iPhone’s Home Screen is a pretty personal place. Do you sort apps type, use folders, or is it just a mess that only you can decipher? Whichever way you like things, here’s how to organize your iOS Home Screen. Move Your Apps Around To move an app around, tap and hold the icon for a few seconds until all the app icons start to wiggle. Be careful not to press too hard, or you’ll activate 3D touch....

Barely a month had passed after we told you to let Windows Update automatically keep your PC updated before Microsoft decided to make us look bad by releasing a couple of awful updates that broke people’s computers. Here’s how to roll things back should an update break everything. RELATED: Why You Need To Install Windows Updates Automatically We’re not backing off our opinion that keeping Windows updated automatically is the best policy, and it’s still very unlikely that you’re going to be affected by another bad update, but since lightning sometimes does strike twice, it’s better to know how to recover just in case....

Windows 11 has a nice Dark Mode, but just like Windows 10, it can’t be scheduled to turn on automatically at night. Thankfully, there is a way to fix this without downloading any extra software. This has always been a strange omission in Windows 10 and 11. The Night Light feature, which is also intended to make the screen easier on your eyes, has this ability. For whatever reason, Microsoft doesn’t include it for Dark and Light Modes....

Google Maps is an indispensable app for finding your way around, but it’s for more than just cars and public transit. You can also use Google Maps to find the best bike routes in your area. We’ll show you how. When you pull up directions on Google Maps, you’ll typically see five transportation modes to choose from: car, public transit, walking, ride share, and biking. The biking option is tucked away at the end, and that’s what we’ll be focusing on....

If you want to keep on top of birthdays for all your Facebook friends, but you don’t want to check Facebook all the time, you can import those birthdays into Google Calendar, where you can then setup reminders. Update: As noted in the comments, you can also export events like birthdays directly from the Events page in Facebook. The instructions have been updated to explain that method instead. Editor’s Note: of course, if you just want to get an email when your Facebook friends have a birthday coming up, Facebook has that feature under Account Settings –> Notifications....

Recently, Reddit has been making news again with a subreddit in w hich people use a machine learning tool called “Deep Fake” to automatically replace one person’s face with another in a video. Obviously, since this is the internet, people are using it for two things: fake celebrity porn and inserting Nicolas Cage into random movies. While swapping someone’s face in a photograph has always been relatively easy, swapping someone’s face in a video used to be time consuming and difficult....

Normally, when you tap the power button on the top edge of your Switch, it puts the console into a low-power Sleep mode but doesn’t turn it off completely. If you’d like to preserve battery life, aren’t planning on using your Switch for a while, or want to troubleshoot a bug, you’ll need to turn off the console completely. How to Shut Down Your Nintendo Switch First, locate the power button on the top edge of your Switch console....

Echo Repeats What You Tell It To Repeat Zeus was fond of leaving Mount Olympus to consort with beautiful nymphs. On one trip, he told a mountain nymph called Echo to waylay his wife, Hera, if she followed him. Hera did come looking for Zeus, and Echo did all she could to keep Hera in conversation. Finally, Hera lost her temper and cursed poor Echo so that she only repeat the last words that someone else had said....

Windows 10 finally added virtual desktops as a built-in feature. If you keep a lot of apps open at once—or use your PC for very different types of tasks—virtual desktops offer a convenient way to stay organized. With virtual desktops, Windows 10 lets you create multiple, separate desktops that each can display different open windows and apps. A simple use for this might be keeping work separate from personal stuff....

Microsoft wants your PC and phone to work well together, even if you have an iPhone or Android phone. In the Fall Creators Update, new “Continue on PC” features allow you to quickly send links from your phone to your computer. This is just the start of Microsoft’s phone-to-PC integration plans. They showed off some fascinating Timeline features that may arrive next update, but the Timeline isn’t here yet....

If you want to get more information about a photo you took, there’s an easy way to do it on your iPhone or iPad. A free iOS app lets you quickly and easily view your photo metadata. What Is Metadata? Every photo you take with a cell phone or digital camera contains a ton of extra metadata embedded in the image file. Viewing this information lets you see where the photo was taken (if you have GPS enabled), what camera settings were used, the date and time the photo was captured, and the image file size and format....

Although the ebook reader market has been dominated by the Kindle (still going strong) and the Nook (losing steam) for years, there’s a contender rising from the ranks: the Kobo Aura HD. Read on as we put it through the paces. What Is The Kobo Aura HD? Before we jump into looking at the actual ebook reader, let’s take a quick look at the company behind it. Although many readers, especially American readers, might be unfamiliar with the Kobo brand (it only has around a 3% market saturation in the U....

The last thing you want on Christmas Day is for your kids to be unable to play the game console they’ve waited so long to enjoy. Read on as we highlight why you need to pre-game your console gift-giving experience. Why Do I Want To Do This? If you’re not a gamer yourself, you might be curious as to why we’d recommend unpacking your child’s game console and setting it up just to turn right back around and repack it for them to open on Christmas Day....

All it takes is adjusting the boot parameters slightly and typing a command or two, but we’ll walk you through it. Reset Your Ubuntu Password Reboot your computer, and then as soon as you see the GRUB Loading screen, make sure to hit the ESC key so that you can get to the menu. Root Shell – Easy Method If you have the option, you can choose the “recovery mode” item on the menu, usually found right below your default kernel option....