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Whether you want to prevent your child from accessing Facebook or are simply sick of the advertisements that litter webpages, a custom hosts file can come in handy. Note: This requires a rooted Android device. How to Edit the Hosts File on Android The easiest way to edit the hosts file on your device is to use the Android Debug Bridge, so go ahead and set it up. Once you’re done, navigate into the folder where ADB is located and type cmd into the location bar, which will open a command prompt in the current folder....

If you built your own PC and bought speedy RAM, there’s a good chance that RAM isn’t actually running at its advertised timings. RAM will always run at slower speeds unless you manually tune its timings–or enable Intel’s XMP. This option isn’t available on every motherboard’s BIOS, and not every stick of RAM has an XMP profile–some RAM is just designed to run at standard speeds. But, if you built your own gaming computer and bought RAM advertised with fast speeds, you should definitely have XMP as an option....

In recent years it has become common for Microsoft to release trial or preview versions of its big-name products. This has been the case with Windows 8 as well as Office 2013 giving consumer the chance to try before they buy. If you downloaded the trial version of the suite, you can gain some extra try-out time with this handy hack. The trial version of Office 365 is only meant to be used for 30 days....

Android still doesn’t offer proper multi-window multitasking, but you can get it with a third-party tweak. All you need is root access — you don’t have to install a custom ROM. Multi-window multitasking is found on some Samsung devices, where it only works with specific apps. You can also use special floating apps on any device. The solution here will let you multitask with any app. Install the Xposed Framework RELATED: Forget Flashing ROMs: Use the Xposed Framework to Tweak Your Android...

When you copy text from one place in a Word document to another, Word helpfully displays a “Paste Options” box right at the end of whatever you pasted. This tool allows you to choose what to do regarding the formatting of the text being pasted. For example, when you paste some text, you can choose to “Keep Source Formatting” (preserves the formatting of the original text), “Merge Formatting” (changes the formatting of the pasted text to match the text that surrounds it), or “Keep Text Only” (removes all original formatting from the pasted text)....

Just like linking to another place in a Word document, you can link to another sheet in an Excel workbook. This is a handy way to quickly jump to a spreadsheet related to your current sheet or cell. Maybe you have a yearly budget with separate sheets for each month. Maybe you have a company workbook with a different sheet for each division. Or maybe you simply have a large workbook with dozens and dozens of sheets....

If you’ve installed a lot of applications in Ubuntu, you may have noticed that takes longer for your system to boot up. Some applications are automatically run when you boot up your Ubuntu system and this process uses up resources as Ubuntu boots. However, you can control which applications run when you boot up Ubuntu and also specify a time delay for each application, so you don’t have every startup application running at boot time....

First, Back Up Your Personal Data This part’s obvious, but it’s important anyway. Be sure to back up any important data on your old computer, smartphone, or tablet before wiping it. You should already be regularly backing up anyway, as this will protect you from hardware failures, malware, and other threats. Thanks to cloud services, much of your important personal data may already come with you. Files stored in services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive are stored online and can be easily accessed on your new PC....

Many people avoid using their camera’s flash because it washes people out, creates harsh shadows, and usually overpowers the background of the photo. Read on as we show you how to avoid common flash problems with a simple flash diffuser. Why Do I Want to Do This? There are many situations where using your camera’s flash is the difference between a pitch black or severely underexposed photograph and a photo you can actually look at later and enjoy....

Tracking down when and where lines of code were added to your codebase can be a headache, but Git stores all changelogs, and does have some tools for searching through commit diffs. You can use them to find lines matching a given search string. Using Git Log Unfortunately sites like GitHub don’t offer this functionality, so you’ll have to use git log. This command has a lot of parameters, including being able to search through commit diffs, but dealing with the output is a little unwieldy....

Twitch isn’t just a solo-streaming experience. If you want to stream with your friends, you can use Twitch’s new squad stream feature, where up to four streamers can combine their streams into one window for combined viewers. Here’s how. To do this, you’ll need to be set up for Twitch streaming on your PC or mobile platform. You’ll also need to have the other Twitch users you want to squad stream with as a friend, as somebody you follow, or to be members of the same Twitch team....

Microsoft Excel is known for being an excellent tool for tracking things like a budget, inventory, or sales and revenue. But there are so many templates available you might not realize exist that can help you track just about anything. You might use a list app to track chores or to keep track of the movies you want to watch. If you already use Excel, why not take advantage of it for tracking these types of things too?...

Your Xbox One’s Kinect should “just work” after you set it up, but occasionally you may experience problems with voice or people recognition. You can recalibrate and reset your Kinect to fix these and other problems. Make Sure Your Kinect Is Enabled First, ensure the Kinect is actually enabled. Open the Settings screen by pressing left on the directional pad or left stick on the dashboard, scrolling down to the settings icon, and selecting “All Settings....

RELATED: How to Refund a Game on Steam Optional: Back Up Steam’s Save Game Data Before you get rid of a game, note that you’ll lose all your saved game data. If you don’t want this to happen, then back up your game progress first. You can back it up manually to a physical hard drive, or let Steam save it to the Steam Cloud instead. Later you can resume your gaming sessions if you decide to reinstall the game....

Previous versions of Excel have had an option for viewing two spreadsheets side-by-side. However, Excel 2013 now makes it easier by allowing you to snap each spreadsheet (opened in separate windows) to each side of the screen. Simply drag one of the windows to the side of the screen until you see a circle briefly spread out from the cursor. The Excel window will snap to that side of the screen, taking up half the screen....

When it comes to online safety, “Facebook” isn’t the first name any of us generally think of. But they just launched Messenger Kids, a kid-focused messaging app (similar to Facebok Messenger or Snapchat) that it claims will keep your kids safer online. But how does it work, and is it really safe? We’ll start by saying this: only you can decide what you are and aren’t comfortable with when it comes to your kids using the internet....

Microsoft will be ending support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014 after 12 and a half years of supporting it. Microsoft has gone out of their way to extend support on several occasions, but the 2014 deadline looks like the final one. We’ve already explained why you should leave Windows XP behind. It’s still widely used, however – it’s the second-most popular operating system after Windows 7, with around double the market share of all Macs combined, according to various statistics....

Microsoft recently launched Office 2013 as well as Office 365, a subscription service. Office 365 will cost you $9.99 per month or $99 a year, while Office 2013 will cost you $219.99 for the Home and Business edition, which can only be used on one PC at a time. Before you open your wallet, take a step back and ask yourself whether you really need Microsoft Office. If you’re like most home users, students, and even many business users, you don’t really need Microsoft Office....

When it comes to taking care of your SSD and valuable data, would it be better to use NTFS or FAT32 for the file system on an internal data partition? Today’s post looks at the ‘pros and cons’ of choosing the best file system to use. 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 frogsbottom wants to know if it would be better to use the FAT32 file system (rather than NTFS) for an internal SSD data partition:...

Windows 8 may be lighter than Windows Vista, but it’s nowhere near as lightweight as these free Linux distributions. If you have an old Windows XP PC or a netbook, you can revive it with a lightweight Linux system. All of these Linux distributions can run from a live USB drive, so you could even boot them directly from a USB drive. This may be faster than installing them to the computer’s slow, aging hard drive....