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Google Assistant can do many things, but it can’t intelligently adjust its volume. If you ask a question, it will blurt out the answer, sometimes louder than you want. Avoid those awkward moments by turning off speech output on Android smartphones. If you don’t want Google Assistant to recite its response out loud, you can simply use the keyboard to enter a command. Google knows that if you’re not using your voice, it probably shouldn’t speak out loud either....

There are a couple of ways that you can enable and disable Do Not Disturb: either through the Alexa app or by just speaking to your Echo. Using the Alexa App Start off by opening up the Alexa app on your phone and tapping on the menu button in the top-left corner of the screen. Tap on “Settings”. Select an Echo device from the list. Tap on the toggle switch to the right of “Do Not Disturb” to enable the feature....

A vCard is a virtual business card that you can attach to emails in Outlook (or elsewhere) and send digitally. Here’s how to create a vCard, send one, or import one in both Outlook and Gmail. How to Create a vCard File in Outlook In Outlook, click the “Contacts” icon to get started. Click File > New Entry to create a new contact. Select “New Contact” and then click the “OK” button....

That shiny new Control Center in iOS 11 doesn’t actually let you disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth anymore. You can toggle Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off from the Control Center, but the hardware radios will still be running and they’ll turn back on completely at 5 a.m. Yes, this is really weird. Update: Apple made this more clear in iOS 11.2. When you toggle Wi-Fi or Bluetooth off from the Control Center, it will still be toggled off temporarily....

A few years ago, people were predicting the death of PC gaming as we know it. Those people are feasting on an abundance of humble pie, as PC games remain a cornerstone of the industry: digital delivery gives us more variety than ever before, and even the relatively niche market of performance gaming hardware has never been more healthy. But even the most humble of PC gamers needs a graphics card (well, sort of), and it’s one of the most frequent upgrades gamers make....

Dual-booting is one way to install multiple operating systems on the same computer. Unfortunately, Windows is making the practice more difficult than ever. Dual-booting (and triple-booting, and so on) involves splitting a storage drive into multiple partitions, with one operating system on each partition, and a boot loader that allows you to choose between each operating system at startup. In some cases, each operating system needs other smaller partitions at least one or two other partitions (such as a swap area for Linux-based operating systems)....

Searching in Outlook is pretty easy, but why bother typing out the same searches over and over if you perform them regularly? Custom Search Folders let you save those custom searches so you can get back to them with just a click or two. And while it’s tempting to just think of Custom Search Folders like a saved search, they’re actually cooler than that. Since they’re automatically updated, they actually work more like virtual folders—similar to the Labels feature in Gmail, except more powerful....

Over the course of the past decade or so, phone calls have died off as our primary form of communication with most people, with text messages being the replacement. And if you’re going to use texting as much as you do, you might as well be using the best apps to do it. Let’s talk about ’em. The Best for Most People: Android Messages Android Messages is Google’s vision for SMS apps on Android, and the stock option on Nexus and Pixel devices....

Verizon has completely overhauled its prepaid plans, making them more competitive with other budget carriers. The cheapest option is now $35 per month, and includes 15 GB of high-speed data and hotspot access — the available hotspot data comes from the same 15 GB pool as the phone. There’s also a $50/mo “Unlimited” plan with 5 GB of dedicated hotspot data. Finally, the $60/mo “Unlimited Plus” option has unlimited phone data, 25 GB of hotspot data, “Global Choice” (which usually costs $10 on its own and has some international access), and support for Verizon’s faster “ultra-wideband” 5G network (which includes C-Band)....

You’re looking through Activity Monitor when you notice a process called blued. Should you be worried that this is running? No: it’s the process that powers Bluetooth on your Mac. RELATED: What Is This Process and Why Is It Running on My Mac? This article is part of our ongoing series explaining various processes found in Activity Monitor, like kernel_task, hidd, mdsworker, installd, WindowServer and many others. Don’t know what those services are?...

There’s an Intel sticker on basically every PC, generally impossible to remove without leaving some nasty residue. Macs also use Intel processors, so why don’t they have stickers? Because stickers are ugly. That’s reason enough for most Mac users, but to really work this out we need to ask why Dell, Asus and other PC makers put up with these stickers in the first place. And it’s the same reason PCs come bundled with software trials you don’t want: money....

Pokémon, one of the most popular video game franchises of all time, has recently gotten even more popular with the release of Pokémon Go. Yet for how many people play this ubiquitous game, so many still don’t seem to know how to pronounce the name–including the CEO of the company that makes it. Those of us who play Pokémon Go regularly (or religiously) have learned to put up with the game’s quirks....

Apple is officially extending its self-repair program to the M1 iMac, the M1 Mac mini, and the Mac Studio. It’s also being extended to the company’s Studio Display monitor. Previously, as far as Mac products go, you could only repair the company’s range of M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. You could also repair iPhone models starting with the iPhone 12. Keep in mind that Apple’s self-service program is only for experienced power users who would like to take a jab at repairing their hardware themselves....

You may have seen a new button in Facebook’s mobile app lately: under the Settings menu, a “Protect” option leads you to download an app called Onavo Protect. Don’t do it. If you head to Facebook’s settings and scroll down—you may need to click “More” to view more options—you’ll see this button. (On Android, you’ll need to go into “Mobile Data” first.) Press it, and you’ll be taken to your phone’s respective app store to download Onavo Protect....

The price is one place where Motorola comes out ahead, as the Edge Plus starts at $1,000 while the Galaxy S22 Ultra starts at $1,199. Notably, the Motorola Edge Plus comes with the latest and greatest in terms of processors. It features the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which will give the phone power to rival Samsung’s latest flagship. Motorola offers either 8GB or 12GB of RAM for its flagship, which is the same as the S22 Ultra....

Private browsing mode doesn’t offer complete privacy, but it does prevent your browser from saving your history, searches, cookies, and other private data between browsing sessions. You can have your browser always start in private browsing mode if you prefer it. Most people won’t want to use private browsing mode permanently. You will have to log into the websites you use each time you open your browser, as your browser won’t save the cookies that keep your login state....

Moving from one phone to another can be as traumatic as changing schools or moving to a new city. To make the transition less painful, you can use Google One to back up and restore Android. What is Google One? Every Google account includes 15 GB of storage shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Photos. According to Google, the only files that don’t consume your free space are “Shared with Me” items, along with photos and videos stored in “High Quality....

Need to cancel an event due to unforeseen circumstances? If so, it’s easy to remove that event from your Google Calendar, including recurring events. You can even send a cancellation notification email to your guests. Here’s how. RELATED: How to Add, Edit, or Delete Recurring Events in Google Calendar Cancel a Google Calendar Event on Desktop If you use a Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chromebook computer, access the Google Calendar site to cancel your event....

The home page is the first page your browser opens when it starts. Most browsers have a default home page that displays recent websites you visited, and maybe other content based on your interests. You can change your home page, though, and here’s how to do it in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. Change Your Home Page in Google Chrome As of this writing, Google Chrome supports changing your home page only in its desktop browser....

Got a new look and want to show it off to your Instagram followers? You’re in luck. Instagram makes it easy to change your profile picture, and we’ll show you how to do it on both the Instagram site and the mobile app. Change Your Instagram Profile Picture in the Mobile App On your iPhone or Android phone, use the Instagram app to update your profile picture. To start, first, launch the Instagram app on your phone....