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One of the many ways you can customize your Android home screen is by replacing it entirely. Android developers can create their own software to replace your home screen — Facebook Home is just one of many options. Most custom Android launchers are currently focused on providing options, changing your home screen’s theme and icons, and generally tweaking the default interface. With Facebook Home’s release, developers may become even more creative in offering alternatives to Android’s home screen....

Apple’s High Dynamic Range LCD The Liquid Retina XDR display is an evolution of Apple’s existing Liquid Retina panels. It’s an LCD that uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology, with the “Retina” moniker referring to the high pixel density which makes it virtually impossible to identify individual pixels at normal operating distances. What differs in newer XDR models is the method of lighting. While a standard Liquid Retina display uses a panel of LEDs that remain on regardless of what content is displayed on the screen, the XDR variant uses many more, smaller LEDs which are grouped into zones, and individually dimmed....

E-Ink and How it Works Unlike traditional display devices like LED and TN, which often comprise individual pixels that each display a color, e-ink devices are much more reliant on fascinating chemistry. E-Ink displays are made of a thin film on top of millions of small capsules filled with a bunch of particles floating in a clear fluid. These particles are all colored a specific pigment: in greyscale displays, those pigments will be either black or white....

By now most people are more than familiar with the concept of Cloud Computing, but what about the new concept referred to as Fog Computing? Today’s Q&A post takes a look at this new concept and how it differs from Cloud Computing. 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. Image courtesy of The Paper Wall....

It’s easy to set up parental controls and filter the web. These features are built into everything from Windows to the iPad. But none of these filtering solutions is perfect. Filters aren’t useless — for example, whitelists can be particularly effective at keeping very young children on a handful of safe websites. But, as kids grow up, filters become less effective. Blacklists Aren’t Perfect RELATED: 4 Ways to Set Up Parental Controls On Your Home Network...

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. You want to upload your stuff to Dropbox, but it’s taking hours, days, or if you’re trying to archive a lot of data, even weeks. Why does it take so long? The answer is quite simple, it’s your connection. You were probably thrilled at first with your broadband connection. You could download files and movies in a few minutes, larger files take longer but it’s no big deal because you can still watch streaming movies, listen to music, view sporting events, and it all seems plenty fast enough....

Most of the time, the values for ‘Size’ and ‘Size on disk’ will be very close to matching when checking a folder or file’s size, but what if there is a huge discrepancy between the two? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post looks at the answer to this confusing problem. 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....

Ever wish you could respond to an email with a GIF, like you can in messaging apps? With Gmail now you can. One of the best features in the new Gmail is the sidebar, where you can add third party tools. One such tool is Gfycat, which lets you quickly react to any email with an animated GIF. Adding the addon is easy: just click the “+” button in the side panel, then search for Gfycat and install it....

Windows 8.1 adds many improvements to the Windows 8 experience, both for classic PC users and users with hybrid devices or tablets. These 10 features will be appreciated by users with touch screens in Windows 8.1, so if you have a tablet or a hybrid device with Windows 8, here’s what’s exciting about Windows 8.1. Ciprian Rusen is a blogger at 7 Tutorials and co-author of Windows 8.1 Step by Step....

Linux systems aren’t as light on disk space as they could be. For example, the APT package manager keeps package files around even after you install them — a waste of space unless you plan on uninstalling and reinstalling them. We’ve also covered freeing up disk space on Windows and freeing up disk space on a Mac. Many of the tips are similar — removing temporary files, analyzing your disk usage, and seeing which installed applications use the most space....

The Windows desktop is the sole platform without an app store-style software installation process. Smartphones, tablets, Macs, and Linux PCs all allow you to quickly install multiple programs — but this is more complicated on Windows. Installing your favorite programs doesn’t have to involve downloading installer after installer, clicking through wizards for hours. We’ll cover some ways to get up and running much more quickly. Install Multiple Programs With Ninite Ninite is popular for a reason....

Sure, your smartphone’s camera can be used for photos and video chats, but it can do much more than that. Your phone’s camera is a powerful tool you can use for everything from finding better prices to navigation and translation. Your smartphone’s camera is a full-fledged input device that makes all sorts of creative apps possible. The apps mentioned below are just examples — there are a variety of different apps that do all of these things....

When enabled, Alexa will be able to detect when you’re whispering, and when she responds, she’ll whisper back instead of talking at her normal volume. It’s certainly better than her shouting responses at full normal volume when you’re trying to keep it quiet in a sleeping household. There are a couple of ways to enable this feature: Open up the Alexa app on your phone and navigate to Settings > Alexa Account > Alexa Voice Responses > Whispered Responses....

“If you weren’t running ransomware protection,” said Adam Kujawa, director of Malwarebytes Labs. “If you haven’t secured your backups in advance, then you really are out of luck.” Are You at Risk? Sure, a ransomware attack can be bad, but not all hazards carry the same level of risk. For example, a killer asteroid strike is a known hazard. Should we spend trillions of dollars building a defense against a threat that only occurs once every 100 million years?...

When it comes to accessing your email, POP3 vs. IMAP isn’t just a matter of preference. POP3 is old, outdated, and not suitable for the modern world. IMAP is the one you should be using. Exchange is also fine — if you have some sort of work email account and it uses Exchange, you’re good. Exchange works similarly to IMAP, but is a proprietary Microsoft protocol that isn’t available everywhere....

In iOS 11, Apple finally added a file manager to both the iPhone and iPad. Dubbed “Files”, this app is a central place where you can view and manage all your files across services like Apple’s iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive. Why Did Apple Add a Files App? RELATED: What’s New in iOS 11 for iPhone and iPad, Available Now Apple initially announced the Files app as an iPad feature designed to make the tablet more powerful as a laptop replacement....

Even if you’ve only loosely followed the events of the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec, you’ve probably heard about web sites and services being hacked, like the infamous Sony hacks. Have you ever wondered how they do it? There are a number of tools and techniques that these groups use, and while we’re not trying to give you a manual to do this yourself, it’s useful to understand what’s going on....

Consoles have come a long way from cartridges. Today, they’re practically just gaming PCs and include built-in storage for save files, game updates, and digital-download games. There’s a good chance you’ll want more storage than what your console includes, and all consoles allow you to get more space. How you’ll do it depends on your console of choice. PlayStation 4 Sony’s PlayStation 4 includes a 500 GB internal drive. Unlike other consoles, Sony doesn’t allow you to connect an external drive to your PlayStation 4 via a USB cable....

If you’d rather not let your friends see whether you’re online on the Xbox Series X|S, then you should hide your online status. To help you with that, we’ll show you how to appear offline on your Xbox. Once you decide to appear offline on your Xbox, your friends won’t be able to see the green dot next to your profile picture. In other words, they won’t know whether you’re online or not....

Portable apps—self-contained executables that can be moved onto flash drives and run without installation—are popular tools for anyone who has to work on multiple Windows machines. If you want to make your workflow even faster, you can add an “auto-run” file that automatically opens the program as soon as you plug in the drive. RELATED: What Is a “Portable” App, and Why Does It Matter? Unfortunately, starting with Windows 7, Microsoft restricted the autorun function for security purposes....