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Want to see live-updating resource usage stats from your system’s CPU, memory, disk, network, or GPU? Windows 10 has some hidden built-in perfomance monitors that can help. You can even have Windows show always-on-top FPS. There are two ways to do this: You can use the Task Manager or the Xbox Game Bar overlay. Both tools have some easy-to-miss performance panels that can be broken out of the tool itself and will appear as a small, always-on-top floating overlay on top of your other running applications....

Microsoft Edge does something very strange if you use Bing Search. Links will open in new tabs and the Search page stays open in another. This can get annoying, and it’s not clear if Bing or Edge is at fault. Here’s the problem we’re talking about: You do a search, click a link from the results, and you’re taken to a new tab. You click the back button to return to the results, but it keeps you in the new tab that was just opened....

The Rose Parade’s New Year’s Celebration will stand in for the parade this year, with a live broadcast on the morning of January 1, 2021, at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT. Like the organizers of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the people behind the Rose Parade (which began in 1890 in Pasadena, California) are doing their best to provide some familiarity while remaining safe and healthy during a difficult time....

If you want to see how fast your network really is, or test the speed between two hard drives, then you need files to do it. Today we’ll tell you how to create “dummy” files so you can perform such tests. RELATED: Wi-Fi vs. Ethernet: How Much Better Is a Wired Connection? Say you’ve installed a fast new solid state drive in your computer, and want to see how fast they really are....

Why Should You Turn Off FaceTime? You might want to turn off or restrict FaceTime for privacy or security reasons. In early 2019, a huge Group FaceTime bug was discovered that let a caller listen in on your iPhone or iPad even before you picked up the call. That bug has now been fixed. But if you’re still not sure about the security of your account, you can disable FaceTime altogether....

Your AirPods can function as hearing aids thanks to “Live Listen” in iOS 12. This feature uses your iPhone (or iPad) as a directional microphone, capturing sound and reducing noise before piping it through your AirPods. Live Listen has been around since 2016, but originally only worked with MFi-certified hearing aids. In iOS 12, it works with Apple’s own AirPods, too. How “Live Listen” Works When you enable Live Listen, your iPhone or iPad functions as a remote microphone that captures audio, reduces noise, and increases the volume before sending it straight to the AirPods in your ears....

Private browsing allows you to surf the web without saving any information about your browsing and download history, cookies, form data, or search history. Browsers available for PCs have provided ways of browsing privately, but what about private browsing on a phone or tablet? It’s easy to browse privately on a mobile device and we will show you how to do so in Google Chrome, Firefox, and Dolphin on Android and how to use two other browsers on Android designed especially for private browsing, Dolphin Zero and InBrowser....

For the purposes of this article, we used the latest version of Firefox on Ubuntu 14.04. These tricks will also work in other browsers, but not Chrome — Chrome users should use Firefox for this instead. RELATED: Using Firefox on Linux? Your Flash Player is Old and Outdated! However, the below trick doesn’t seem to work in Chrome or another browser that uses the Pepper-based Flash plug-in. You’ll just see a black screen when the video tries to play....

Android developers can restrict their apps to certain devices, countries, and minimum versions of Android. However, there are ways around these restrictions, allowing you to install apps marked as “not compatible with your device.” Note that these tricks are all unsupported by Google. These tricks require fooling Google Play, and many require root. Some of these tricks may not work properly, as Google doesn’t want us doing these things....

Portable applications allow you to move between computers, taking your applications and their settings with you on a USB stick. Portable VirtualBox allows you to create portable operating systems and run them on any PC. This tool allows you to take virtual machines with you and run them on any PC without worrying about installing and configuring virtual machine software. How it Works RELATED: The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit...

Windows 10 has a new, easy-to-use tool for freeing up disk space on your computer. It removes temporary files, system logs, previous Windows installations, and other files you probably don’t need. This tool is new in the April 2018 Update. It works similarly to the old Disk Cleanup utility, but it’s part of the modern Settings app and is a bit faster to use. RELATED: Everything New in Windows 10’s April 2018 Update, Available Now...

System images are complete backups of everything on your PC’s hard drive or a single partition. They allow you to take a snapshot of your entire drive, system files and all. Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X all have integrated ways to create system image backups. There are sometimes good reasons to do this, but they shouldn’t be your regular backup strategy. What is a System Image? RELATED: 8 Backup Tools Explained for Windows 7 and 8...

There are a variety of household devices and electronics that can interfere with your Wi-Fi signal, but most don’t have the ability to do so quite so spectacularly as a microwave oven. Read on as we explore how a microwave can wreak havoc on your wireless network. 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....

When Windows blue-screens, it creates memory dump files — also known as crash dumps. This is what Windows 8’s BSOD is talking about when it says its “just collecting some error info.” These files contain a copy of the computer’s memory at the time of the crash. They can be used to help diagnose and identify the problem that led to the crash in the first place. Types of Memory Dumps RELATED: Everything You Need To Know About the Blue Screen of Death...

Now over four years old, the Raspberry Pi, a cheap credit-card sized computer, has taken the computing and DIY world by storm. Read on as we guide you through everything from buying to powering to running the tiny dynamo. What Is the Raspberry Pi? The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer designed and manufactured by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to making computers and programming instruction as accessible as possible to the widest number of people....

Your webcam may not work on Windows 10 for several reasons. The usual troubleshooting steps apply, but Windows 10 has a new system-wide option that completely disables your webcam in all applications. Check Windows 10 Camera Options On Windows 10, the Settings app has a few switches that disable your webcam in all applications. If you disable your webcam here, even desktop applications won’t be able to use it....

Internet Explorer is a complex piece of software and hasn’t always been the browser choice of us geeks, but the truth is that it has gotten a lot better over the years so come and see what it has to offer. Be sure to check out the previous articles in this Geek School series on Windows 7: Introducing How-To Geek School Upgrades and Migrations Configuring Devices Managing Disks Managing Applications...

How Much Do EVs Actually Cost? When shopping for an EV, the up-front purchase cost is the one most people think of. And electric cars do still have a higher cost at the time you buy them than gas vehicles, on average. In some cases, however, that cost difference can be mitigated somewhat by government incentives. But the sticker price isn’t the only expense to consider. Just as there are costs to owning a gas vehicle, like oil changes, regular maintenance, and filling up with fuel, there are lifetime costs to owning an EV....

Alternative text (alt text) allows screen readers to capture the description of an object and read it aloud, providing aid for those with visual impairments. Here’s how to add alt text to an object in Word. In Word, you can add alt text to some objects, but not others. You can add alt text to images, shapes, screenshots, icons, 3D models, and even text boxes. You cannot add alt-text to SmartArt or charts....

You can easily access the PC Settings screen in Windows 8.1… by swiping on the right side of the screen, and then clicking on Settings, and then finally clicking on PC Settings at the bottom of the window. Since that’s a pain, here is how to pin it to your Start Screen. Note: if you are using Windows 8 instead of 8.1, you can’t easily pin the PC Settings to the Start Screen without an annoying workaround that we won’t cover here....