Have you ever been working in OS X’s Finder and wanted to open the Terminal in that exact location? There’s an easy way to do this, and then there’s an even easier way. Windows users have wielded this power for quite some time. In any File Explorer window, you can just click on the “File” menu and then you’ll see two options to open that location in a command prompt....
iMessage is one of the biggest lock-ins for owners of iPhones and iPads, and Apple knows it. That’s because it’s pretty great, but there are features you may not be using to their fullest. Tapbacks are one–here’s how to use them. In fact, you may have never heard of a Tapback, partly because Apple hasn’t done a great job of surfacing the feature. It’s almost invisible to anyone who doesn’t know where to find it, and that’s not conducive to organic feature discovery....
Have you ever had the need to bulk restore your Citrix-Xen VMs for a disaster recovery (DR) solution, or just to test that your backups are working? HTG explains how to use Xen-Phoenix, a free bash script, for VM restoring. Photo Credit: Ryan McCurdy via Compfight cc Like we’ve mentioned in “How To Backup Citrix Xen VMs for Free with Xen-pocalypse“, one of the nice things in Citrix Xen is that many of its features are free of charge....
If you’re practicing lax password management and hygiene, it’s only a matter of time until one of the increasingly numerous large-scale security breaches burns you. Stop being thankful you dodged the past security breach bullets and armor yourself against the future ones. Read on as we show you how to audit your passwords and protect yourself. What’s the Big Deal and Why Does this Matter? In October of this year, Adobe revealed that there had been a major security breach that affected 3 million users of Adobe....
Connecting your credit or debit card to Google Pay makes it easy to track your payments in the app. But what about payments you don’t make with those cards? There’s a clever solution for tracking physical receipts too using Google Photos and Gmail. Google Pay doesn’t let you manually enter transactions. To get around this limitation, you can take a photo of a physical receipt or let Google find it in your emails....
When you first cracked the box for your Chromebook, it was new and snappy. But over time, it’s gotten sluggish and frustrating. If you’re looking to get more pep out of your Chromebook, here are some things you can do. Why Do Chromebooks Slow Down Over Time? Chromebooks have many benefits, but being immune to the inevitable slowdown most devices experience is unfortunately not one of them. Just like every other piece of tech, things are going to get gummed up and start to run more slowly as time goes on....
If your devices have both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capability built in, then which one is actually faster? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader jt0dd wants to know if Bluetooth is faster than Wi-Fi: Which one is faster?...
If you are purchasing a new router for a household with a high number of devices, you might wonder if it can handle all those devices concurrently without a problem. Today’s SuperUser Q&A post looks at the debate a reader is facing as he gets ready to purchase a new router for a heavy-usage household. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites....
Microsoft Office documents containing built-in macros can be dangerous. Macros are essentially bits of computer code, and historically they’ve been vehicles for malware. Luckily, modern versions of Office contain security features that will protect you from macros. Macros are still potentially dangerous. But, like a lion at the zoo, you’d have to go out of your way to be hurt by them. As long as you don’t bypass the built-in security features, you shouldn’t have to worry....
Whether you’re a web developer or just an avid internet user, you may need to use multiple browsers. Each browser has useful features that are not available in the other browsers, so, you may need to switch browsers to take advantage of certain features. You can simply open the desired browser from the desktop or Start menu. However, if you’re opening an HTML file or clicking a link in another program, the browser set as your default browser will open the file or webpage....
Smartphones and computers are notification-generating machines. Every app wants to constantly ping you, interrupting your life and pulling you out of that “flow state” while working. All those notifications are a distraction. At best, they’re constantly dinging in your pocket all day while you try to live your life. At worst, they’ll cause you to ignore all your notifications and miss the important ones. iPhone and iPad RELATED: How to Manage Notifications on iPhone and iPad...
We’ve long railed against registry cleaners and system tuners as useless products that waste your money, but how do you go about cleaning up after uninstalling shady freeware? Answer: You don’t. You avoid installing nonsense on your PC to begin with by testing everything in a virtual machine first. Snapshots just make it easier. RELATED: Why We Hate Recommending Software Downloads To Our Readers It’s been a long time since the days when you could just test out lots of freeware on your computer without worry — these days almost all freeware is bundled with spyware, crapware, adware, or the ninth circle of hell, which includes things like the awful Ask Toolbar or the terrible Trovi browser hijacker malware....
Ever get the urge to edit some audio but you’re not sure where to start? Settle in with this HTG guide to the free audio editor Audacity that’s written for beginners but caters to geeks of all levels. Note: this is the first article in a multi-part series that we’ll be covering over the next few weeks. Oh, the Audacity! In this series, we’ve chosen to highlight a particular application, Audacity, because of a few important reasons....
In many ways, a laptop is a far more personal machine than a traditional desktop computer. While my desktop is the machine I use 90% of the time, my laptop can and often goes with me everywhere, riding along on planes and in cars, staying with me on the couch and following me to bed, all the while bearing the brunt of my snacking and spills. In the end, when it comes down to picking one machine to write my way through the best and worst of times, it’s my laptop (currently an aging Thinkpad X60) that has pulled me through....
ASUS just revealed the TUF Gaming GT502 case for custom PCs. The TUF brand is normally reserved for mid-range gaming, while the more recognizable ROG lineup is what ASUS normally uses for ultra-premium gaming gear. Despite that, this TUF case has everything a premium user could need, including, most importantly, ample space and versatility for cooling. It has a dual-chamber design and, in total, the case lets you install up to 13 fans (coming with four preinstalled ARGB fans as well as an ARGB hub), letting you draw and exhaust the right amount of air to keep your PC cool....
Adobe is no longer developing the Flash for Firefox on Linux. You’re still getting security updates, but that’s it — your Flash Player plug-in is already several major versions out-of-date. Linux users can still use the Pepper-based Flash plug-in included with Google Chrome for Linux. This is the only way to get the latest version of Flash on Linux, although the plug-in can be installed separately for Chromium or Firefox....
MIMO stands for “multiple input, multiple output.” A 4×4 MIMO device has four antennas for four simultaneous data streams, while a 2×2 MIMO has two. The iPhone XR is 2×2 MIMO, while the iPhone XS and XS Max are 4×4 MIMO. What Is MIMO? MIMO is an integral part of modern wireless communications technologies, whether you’re talking about 802.11ac Wi-Fi or 4G LTE cellular data. Traditionally, a device had just a single antenna inside it....
There are a lot of strange terms that come with using a computer. One that you may have seen is “Human Interface Device” or “HID.” It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but what exactly does it mean? “Human Interface Device” may sound strangely alien, but the name is actually very descriptive. Simply put, an HID is a standard for computer devices that are operated by humans. The standard allows these devices to be easily used without any extra software or drivers....
If you’d like to shed some light on things, using your iPhone’s built-in flashlight is a great place to start. Here’s how to locate and turn on your flashlight in just a few taps. How to Turn On the Flashlight in Control Center Every Apple iPhone model made in recent years includes a flashlight feature which uses the LED camera flash on the back side of the phone to illuminate the space around you....
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Arne wants to know why his local search is so slow compared to a search engine query: He’s certainly not the only one who has noticed the discrepancy; right out of the box with no customization operating-system based search is pretty darn slow....
