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Most homeowners deck out their houses with smarthome gear for the convenience and cool features, but what you may not know is that some devices come with features that can prevent problems and even potentially be life saving. Schedule Automatic Shut Off on Smart Plugs Most things you probably plug into smart plugs are trivial devices, like a lamp or a fan. However, if you use things space heaters with your smart plugs, you might want to set a schedule so that the smart plug automatically shuts off at a specific time if it’s not already turned off....

Mozilla was supposed to be different. It brands itself as a non-profit organization dedicated to making the web better, one that cares about user privacy and security. But after this week, I’m starting to wonder if Mozilla really cares about its users the way they claim. I just switched back to Firefox Quantum from Chrome, and this week’s Mr. Robot stunt makes me angry. But maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised about Mozilla’s actions—this is exactly what we should expect from Mozilla given other recent decisions, like the forced integration of Pocket and the sponsored tiles on the home page....

Most people are aware that popular YouTube channels make money, but it’s not immediately obvious how. And there’s a reason for that: the answer isn’t straightforward. There are several different ways for a YouTube channel to make money. There’s advertising, sure, but most channels have at least one other revenue source, and which ones used can vary. Hank Green outlined this all a few years back. Play Video Here’s a look at these revenue sources, along with how much money they can potentially bring in....

If you pay for professional monitoring with your Abode home security system, you can set up emergency contacts that are notified whenever an intrusion is detected, adding in a bit more peace of mind. How Emergency Contacts Work When an alarm goes off in your house, you are notified first and foremost—your emergency contacts are only notified if you don’t answer. RELATED: How to Arm and Disarm Your Abode System Automatically...

If you’re like me and turn your porch lights on after the sun goes down, it’s sometimes easy to forget to do it every night. However, if you have a Wink hub and a smart bulb or smart switch, you can have your porch light automatically turn on and off based on the sunset and sunrise schedule. RELATED: How to Put Your Lights on a Schedule with Wink We’ve covered how to do something similar in the past, but that involves setting a specific time for lights to turn on and off....

A wise man once said that a normal person, plus anonymity, plus an audience, equals…well, something we can’t reprint on a family-friendly website. But the tendency for anonymous crowds to be abusive is well-known, and adding in the competitive nature of online multiplayer games doesn’t help things. If you’ve found yourself harassed by abusive players, there are a few things you can do to make your online games less frustrating....

These days, it’s rare to see Microsoft’s Outlook email client on anything except a dedicated office machine. Who needs an expensive application when web email is all the rage? But if you’d still prefer to have a local program managing your mail, Microsoft includes a free one with every copy of Windows 10. It’s called…Mail. Like a lot of Microsoft’s built-in applications, Mail is pretty basic, and there’s no way to back up your email files and settings within the app itself (unlike some previous versions)....

Why You Would Want to Change The Watch Word There’s a variety of reasons you might want to change the wake word trigger for your Echo devices. Perhaps you liked the name Alexa so much, you gave it to your daughter, and now your Echo unit responds to commands directed at your child. If you’re sick of Alexa-the-Digital-Assistant saying “I don’t understand” in response to commands, like “Alexa, take the trash out”, directed at Alexa-your-Daughter, then it’s definitely time to change....

Tired of the same old taskbar? Windows 10 lets you customize its appearance, including changing the taskbar color. The method isn’t obvious, but it’s easy with a trip to Settings. Here’s how to do it. To get started, launch the Windows Settings app by pressing Windows+i on your keyboard. Or you can open the Start menu and select the small gear icon on the left. In “Settings,” click “Personalization.”...

Intel’s graphics drivers will refuse to install on some computers, even if they use Intel graphics chips. If you see this error message, your computer manufacturer wants you to install drivers from their website, not directly from Intel. But there’s a way to bypass this message and install the Intel drivers anyway. Why Your Manufacturer May Prevent You From Installing Drivers If the drivers can’t be installed, you’ll see a “The driver being installed is not validated for this computer....

To force Apple Watch to sync with your iPhone, you have to reset sync data. But before you get there, see if all connections between the Apple Watch and iPhone are enabled. Open the Control Center on your iPhone by swiping down from the top-right corner of the screen. If you have an older iPhone with a Home button, swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Here, in the “Toggles” menu, make sure the “Bluetooth” and “Wi-Fi” toggles are enabled....

Installing Google Chrome Graphically The Ubuntu apt package manager uses installation packages called “.deb” files. Our first step is to obtain the Google Chrome “.deb” file. Visit the official Google Chrome download page and click the “Download Chrome” button. Note that there is no 32-bit version of Google Chrome. Select the “64 bit .deb (for Debian/Ubuntu)” option, and then click the “Accept and Install” button. The “.deb” file will be downloaded....

Minecraft is a fantastic game, and it has one of the largest modding communities in gaming history. What if you want to add some personal flair to your game, but you’re not a graphic artist? Here’s how to use Stable Diffusion to make textures for Minecraft. Everything You Need to Get Started There are a bunch of programs you’ll need before you can get started. They’re all free (or have free alternatives), except for Minecraft itself....

What Is DNS? DNS is the system that translates a domain name like example.com to the numerical IP address of its server. This could look like 127.0.0.1. Whenever you make a network request using a domain name, your system will perform a DNS lookup to determine the server address it should contact. This adds an overhead to every request you make. Although your device will cache DNS responses, visits to new domains will incur a DNS round-trip before the actual request begins....

Windows 10 now allows you to install multiple Linux environments, starting with the Fall Creators Update. If you have multiple Linux environments, you can set your default and switch between them. RELATED: How to Install and Use the Linux Bash Shell on Windows 10 You’re free to run multiple Linux environments at once, but your default environment is used when you run a command like wsl.exe or bash.exe to launch the shell, or when you use wsl [command] or bash -c [command] to run a command from elsewhere in Windows....

Instagram’s Story feature is incredibly popular; it now has more daily users than Snapchat, the app it’s copying. The problem is, unless you have a private Instagram account, anyone, including your mother, can follow you. If you want to post photos from your wild parties to your Instagram Story, but also want to avoid an awkward family dinner, here’s how to block specific people from viewing it. RELATED: What Are Instagram “Stories,” and How Do I Use Them?...

How Does it Work? Currently, it’s not possible to truly replace an app’s icon on an iPhone or iPad. Instead, you can achieve a similar result by using the Shortcuts app. We’ll be creating a custom shortcut that opens an app and then using a custom image as its icon on the home screen. This technique has been possible since the introduction of Shortcuts in iOS 12, but it became popular following the release of iOS 14, which allows you to officially hide home screen icons in your App Library....

Whether you’ve given a computer to your child or just want to keep things clean on your own machine, blocking sites that serve malware, porn, social networking, and gambling en masse is useful. And while there’s lots of third party software out there for the job, the hosts file is a built-in option for every major operating system. RELATED: How to Edit Your Hosts File on Windows, Mac, or Linux...

The Difference Between atime, mtime, and ctime Every Linux file has three timestamps: the access timestamp (atime), the modified timestamp (mtime), and the changed timestamp (ctime). The access timestamp is the last time a file was read. This means someone used a program to display the contents of the file or read some values from it. Nothing was edited or added to the file. The data was referenced but unchanged....

This weekend, while most of the technology and gaming press wasn’t working on anything particularly important, Warner Bros. Interactive tried to slip a small news item past their attention. Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, the highly-anticipated sequel to the Tolkien-themed adventure game Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, will include microtransactions. This $60 game—up to $100 USD if you spring for the special pre-order versions—will ask players to pay even more in bite-sized chunks to unlock some of its content faster....