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Check Discord’s Status Page If you’re having trouble connecting to Discord, first check whether the service is experiencing an outage. You can do this using the Discord status page, which should report any problems. If you’re having particular problems with one aspect of Discord, like notifications or calling, you can see whether these individual services are running as intended. If you find that Discord is having trouble and the “All Systems Operational” message isn’t showing, it’s time to sit tight and wait it out....

Windows 10 is a huge step forward into the future! Or wait, isn’t it a step back? Either way, it’s a technical preview that isn’t finished yet, which gives us a huge opportunity to help shape what the final version might look like. RELATED: 10 Ways to Customize the Windows 10 Start Menu Let’s face it, Windows 10 is basically just Windows 8 with a Start Menu and windowed “Modern” apps, which you can get with third party software like ModernMix....

Meta announced today that its yearly event for augmented and virtual reality, Meta Connect, will take place on October 11 this year. The company said in a blog post, “last year, we pulled back the curtain on our vision for the metaverse and the next era of social computing. This year, we’ll share updates on the progress we’ve made, plus a look at what’s to come in the near and far future....

Do you have your PC, television, or other expensive electronics plugged directly into a power outlet? You shouldn’t. You should plug your gadgets into a surge protector, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as a power strip. Sure, we all might forget about surge protection because everything seems to be going fine, but it only takes one power surge or spike and your expensive electronics could become useless. Power Surges and Spikes Electrical sockets are supposed to provide a consistent voltage of electricity, and devices you plug into your power outlets depend on this....

Keyboard shortcuts are practically essential for using any type of PC. They’ll speed up almost everything you do. But long lists of keyboard shortcuts can quickly become overwhelming if you’re just getting started. This list will cover the most useful keyboard shortcuts that every Windows user should know. If you haven’t used keyboard shortcuts much, these will show you just how useful keyboard shortcuts can be. Windows Key + Search The Windows key is particularly important on Windows 8 — especially before Windows 8....

Whatever platform you look at — iOS, OS X, Android, Windows, Linux — there is some form of software store available. Android users have been able to enjoy Google Play (under various guises) for some time, and Apple’s App Store is well known even outside of tech circles. Microsoft was a little slow to join the party, but Windows 8’s Store means everyone is now on the same page. But is the store that’s built into Windows 8 the best option?...

The CPU and GPU Have Different Jobs While there are many processors inside your computer, two of them are the most important. The CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the general-purpose processor of the computer. It can execute any instruction and solve any problem, as long as you can express how to do it in computer code. In video games, the CPU does most of the heavy lifting. This includes the AI of game characters, the simulation of physics in the game world, and virtually every other aspect of the video game’s code....

What Does “Headless” Mean? A “headless” computer system is just one without a local interface. There’s no monitor (“head”) plugged into it. There’s also no keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, or other local interface for controlling it. These systems aren’t computers you sit down and use like a desktop computer. They don’t have a graphical interface set up. You access and administer them remotely—generally over a network. For example, you might control a headless server through a web-based control panel or via SSH, which gives you a secure command-line shell you can access over a network....

SMS: Born in Europe SMS originated in 1984, initially conceived by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert (a German-French collaboration) while working as part of the ETSI group that was developing a new digital cell phone standard called GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications). Hillebrand came up with the idea of allowing short digital text messages through the upcoming GSM cell phone network. To be economical, this message service would utilize previously unused space in a control link radio channel that typically only held information about signal strength and incoming calls....

Exposing a Port Ports are exposed via EXPOSE instructions in an image’s Dockerfile: Exposing a port doesn’t have any immediate effect though. The statement only communicates that the application inside the container listens on port 80. It does not bind the port to your host’s network interfaces. As an image author, listing ports used by your workload with EXPOSE helps users configure appropriate port forwarding rules when they start a container....

Since Windows 10’s release and the privacy controversy that followed, many “anti-spying” apps have sprung up. They promise to keep Windows 10 from tracking you–but often, they can cause more problems than they solve. We recommend changing privacy settings using the normal options in Windows. These invasive tools can break things and cause a variety of system problems you may not notice until later, with no indication that the problem was caused by the tool....

Windows has many different administration tools, but do you know what even half of them do? In this edition of Geek School, we are going to teach you all about how to use these tools, as well as when to use each one. Windows administration is more than just creating user accounts or running defrag once in a while. It’s more than clearing out caches and making sure there aren’t any viruses....

PC manufacturers are now beginning to create all-in-one Android desktop PCs. They also sell Android laptops and convertibles that transform from a laptop-with-keyboard to a tablet. But should you buy one? The short answer is that Android is better suited to tablets, while full Windows is much more powerful on desktop PCs and laptops. These Android devices are closer to extra-large tablets than typical PCs. Why Do Android PCs Exist?...

Linux distributions aren’t just the Linux kernel. They all contain other critical software, like the Grub bootloader, Bash shell, GNU shell utilities, daemons, X.org graphical server, a desktop environment, and more. All these different programs are developed by different, independent development groups. They’re combined by Linux distributions, where they build on top of each other to make a complete “Linux” operating system. This is unlike Windows, which is developed entirely by Microsoft....

You can buy a laptop or Wi-Fi tablet and use it on Wi-Fi anywhere in the world, so why are cell phones and devices with mobile data not portable between different cellular networks in the same country? Unlike with Wi-Fi, there are many different competing cellular network standards — both around the world and within countries. Cellular carriers also like locking you to their specific network and making it difficult to move....

Roaming data can cost as much as 300 times the price of domestic data, leading to bill shock. Some of the more extreme examples of roaming bills have been for tens of thousands of dollars. Carriers have to negotiate roaming contrasts amongst each other, and they’re generally free to add as much markup as they like when negotiating roaming rates. If you’re travelling with a smartphone, beware of roaming fees....

Microsoft is working on a completely new Outlook app for Windows, but it will be a while before it’s done. In the meantime, one feature from the new app has been backported: To Do integration. Microsoft is now rolling out To Do in Outlook for Windows to everyone on the Current Channel — no switching to the Office Insiders program required. It’s part of the same Outlook version 2207 update that includes the new left navigation bar, replacing the bottom tabs that have been in Outlook for over 19 years....

Router upgrades are a rare event for most people and, as a result, they tend to be more frustrating than need be thanks to overlooked settings, forgotten tweaks, and misplaced ISP credential requirements. Read on as we show you how to smooth the bumpy upgrade road for an effortless transition from your old router to your shiny new one. Why Do I Want To Do This? There is scarcely a more ignored (but critically important) piece of home networking hardware than the humble router....

Last year, Google announced plans to lock down Chrome so that extensions can’t be side-loaded by crapware installers. Sadly they’ve found a way to trick users into installing lousy extensions, although in this case these spyware and adware extensions do exist in the Chrome Web Store. RELATED: Warning: Your Browser Extensions Are Spying On You As usual, this starts by making the huge mistake of going to Download.com and downloading some freeware....

Have you ever thought that Smartphones these days are so advanced they could actually replace the PC in your everyday computing life? Today, we here at HTG will review using the Galaxy S4 with the “Smart Dock Multimedia Hub” as a PC replacement. Image by Aviad & JD Hancock. The bottom line For the really impatient reader, YES, this setup does bring a huge productivity boost, even for non-ROOTed users....