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If you managed to get infected with the absolutely terrible Ask Toolbar on your computer, don’t be ashamed – it could happen to anybody. Especially considering that is bundled with the equally awful Java runtime. Those people should be ashamed of themselves. We’ve repeatedly pleaded with our readers to get rid of Java since it’s just one giant security hole these days, but sadly, there’s some applications that require Java to run, including on one of our test machines here....

On a typical day, you’d have to drop $219 to take this Chromebook from ASUS home, so this is a really substantial discount. It’s listed as a single-day deal, so you’ll need to order it today, February 22, if it’s something that interests you. As far as the specs, they’re modest but respectable for the price. You’ll get an Intel Celeron N3350 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 32GB SSD....

Merging and rebasing accomplish similar goals, but go about them in different ways. Both help manage working with branches and collaborating with multiple people, but they’re not interchangeable, and rebasing can be harmful if not done properly. What’s The Deal With Rebasing? Rebasing is very complicated, so it’s important to understand how git works under the hood if we’re going to make any sense of it. Git stores your code as a series of edits....

Windows Update has seen a lot of changes on Windows 10. The biggest is a more aggressive approach to getting everyone up-to-date, but Windows 10 will also use BitTorrent-style peer-to-peer downloads for updates. Many of the included applications on Windows 10 — the Microsoft Edge browser and all those other “universal apps” — will be automatically updated through the Windows Store, which is separate from Windows Update. The Control Panel Interface is Gone RELATED: Here’s What’s Different About Windows 10 for Windows 7 Users...

Ask a geek how to fix a problem you’ve having with your Windows computer and they’ll likely ask “Have you tried rebooting it?” This seems like a flippant response, but rebooting a computer can actually solve many problems. So what’s going on here? Why does resetting a device or restarting a program fix so many problems? And why don’t geeks try to identify and fix problems rather than use the blunt hammer of “reset it”?...

Netbooks are terrible, as most people now agree. They seemed like a good idea at the time, offering a cheap laptop experience in a small package. But they were ultimately too slow, too small, and too poorly built. Many netbooks are now lying around, unused. If you’re one of the people who purchased a netbook and can’t bring yourself to use it, these tips may help you get some more value out of your investment....

The Windows key made its first appearance in 1994, and it’s still an essential tool for Windows 10 power users. Here are the most important Windows key keyboard shortcuts for Windows 10 you should know about. Starting with Windows 95, the Windows key could perform basic desktop tasks like opening the start menu, minimizing all open windows, cycling through taskbar buttons, and so on. Windows 2000 brought the much welcome keyboard shortcut for locking your desktop....

Wireless carriers are gouging us — particularly in North America, where the USA and Canada have the most expensive cell phone plans in the world. We’ll look at the many ways cell phone companies are taking advantage of us. Carriers don’t stop at just having the most expensive plans in the world. From long contracts to fees upon fees, carriers have set the system up to take advantage of customers....

If you’ve grown tired of exploring the vanilla Minecraft world and the thrill of stumbling upon the tiny dungeons or sprawling mineshafts is gone, we’ve got just the thing for you: enormous procedurally generated dungeons courtesy of MCDungeon. Read on as we show you how to pack your Minecraft world with exciting and elaborate dungeons to explore, treasure hunts to engage in, and ruins to give the place a lived-in look....

ZFS is commonly used by data hoarders, NAS lovers, and other geeks who prefer to put their trust in a redundant storage system of their own rather than the cloud. It’s a great file system to use for managing multiple disks of data and rivals some of the greatest RAID setups. Photo by Kenny Louie. What is ZFS and Why Should I Use it? The Z file system is a free and open source logical volume manager built by Sun Microsystems for use in their Solaris operating system....

Today, we’re covering the “boring” Outlook stuff. Maintenance and security, as in, maintaining and securing your Outlook 2013 data file – full of all your important data – by backing up and archiving it. As of this far, if you’ve been using Outlook to compose and send e-mails, and you’ve taken the time to import your G-mail contacts into your address book, or the fact that you’re even using an Outlook address book, means you have a lot of data that needs protecting....

It’s a natural instinct to wonder who is viewing your Twitter profile and your Tweets, but while plenty of services claim to offer this feature, it’s really not possible. The Browser Extensions and Services Are Fake Like with Facebook, it’s easy to find browser extensions that claim to let you know who’s viewed your Twitter Profile. We recommend being careful installing browser extensions from companies you don’t trust, and most extensions that offer these features don’t come from big, reputable companies....

Comcast announced the rollout of its initial multi-gig service, with download speeds up to 2 Gbps, in four US cities: Augusta (Georgia), Colorado Springs (Colorado), Panama City Beach (Florida), and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). The company plans to roll out the service to 30 more cities, bringing the total up to 34 before the end of the year. The arrival of multi-gig internet also improves lower plans, with Comcast saying that some tiers are now offering upload speeds up to 10 times faster than previously possible....

In this edition of Geek School we are going to cover the configuration of hardware in Windows 7. Come join us. Be sure to check out the other articles in the series (so far) Introducing How-To Geek School Upgrades and Migrations Managing Disks The Hardware and Application Configuration objective accounts for 14 percent of the exam. While there is not a lot of theory to learn in these sections, they are the sections that often come up in the simulation questions....

When your torrent client joins the swarm to share and gather file pieces, how exactly does it know where all its peers are? Read on as we poke around inside the mechanisms that undergird the BitTorrent protocol. 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 Steve V. had a very specific question about the Distributed Hash Table (DHT) system within the BitTorrent protocol:...

Unlike a faster CPU or graphics card, more memory (aka RAM) won’t always speed up your games. If you already have enough RAM, adding more won’t make a difference. So how much RAM do you need for modern PC gaming, anyway? This is a crucial question whether you’re purchasing a gaming computer, buying RAM while building your own PC, or just thinking about upgrading your current computer. It’s All About Capacity, Not Speed RELATED: What’s the Difference Between DDR3 and DDR4 RAM?...

Whenever you add a Business Card to your signature in Outlook 2013, the Signature Editor automatically generates a picture of it and includes that in the signature as well as attaching the .vcf file. However, there is a way to leave out the image. To remove the business card image from your signature but maintain the attached .vcf file, you must make a change to the registry. NOTE: Before making changes to the registry, be sure you back it up....

If you want really quick access to launch a frequently used application without putting extra icons on your desktop, you can add that application to the context menu for the desktop with a simple registry hack. Here’s how to do it. Naturally, we’ve also covered the opposite scenario — how to clean up your messy Windows context menu, which is an equally useful read if you’ve got a bunch of items you want to remove from the menu....

Using the Docker CLI to list and inspect the resources on your system often produces verbose output that can hide important details. Docker supports Go’s templating syntax in conjunction with the –format flag to give you control over what’s displayed. Learning how to use templates can turn you into a Docker CLI power user. They let you efficiently select and transform command outputs to create the views you need. This results in a more productive CLI experience and less time spent scanning long console lines....

The action button on the Apple Pencil is so hidden, it’s quite possible to entirely miss it or to discover it accidentally. Hold your Apple Pencil so that your index finger rests naturally on the flat side. Now just double-tap the flat side of the Apple Pencil. The entire bottom third of the Apple Pencil serves as an action button, so you won’t have to adjust your grip to use the feature....