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Why Swap the Keycaps On Your Mechanical Keyboard? In the beginning, all computer keyboards were mechanical. That distinctive clickity-clackity sound that people associate with old computers is a sound produced by a combination of the mechanical switches beneath the keycaps and the thick plastic keycaps attached to those switches. Starting in the late 1980s, however, the rise of membrane keyboards led to a slow and steady decline in mechanical keyboard production and usage....

What Is Advanced Data Protection? Advanced Data Protection is Apple’s name for end-to-end encryption for your iCloud data. End-to-end encryption means that data is encrypted when it leaves your device, stored in that encrypted format on Apple’s servers, then decrypted with the required key using trusted devices, like your iPhone. The big difference is that only you have the key to decrypt your data: Not even Apple has the key to access your data on its servers....

Some people spend hours — maybe even days — trying to clean an infected Windows system and ensuring it’s actually clean and safe afterward. It’s usually not a good idea to do this — just reinstall Windows and start over. This may seem like a daunting task, especially if you don’t have good backups of your important files. But it’s worth it to quickly obliterate an infection and ensure your system is safe....

RELATED: The Best Action Movies on Netflix in 2022 Apocalypto Play Video On the surface, Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto sounds like an inaccessible cinematic experiment, set in the 16th-century Yucatan (in what would later be Mexico) with dialogue entirely in the ancient Mayan language. But Gibson puts together a thrilling action movie in this unfamiliar setting, telling a recognizable story about a desperate man racing to save his family. That man is fighting against members of a literally cutthroat rival tribe, running through the thick, unexplored jungle, but the emotional and narrative stakes remain universal and timeless....

Everyone has at least one weather app installed on their phone, but there are so many different ones out there. Finding the “best” one can be a bit difficult, so we’ve rounded up a couple of the best to help you decide. Obviously, “best” is super subjective, but we’re looking to make your decision simple–after all, that’s what checking the weather should be. So here are what we consider to be the most accurate and efficient ones that will serve most people’s needs....

Do you have an interest in learning more about Linux for personal enjoyment and/or with an eye towards the job market? Then you will definitely be excited to learn that the Linux Foundation is now offering a free ‘Introduction to Linux’ MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) program for anyone who is interested in increasing their Linux knowledge. Image courtesy of The Linux Foundation. If you have been looking for a great opportunity to learn more about Linux, then this is an offer too good to pass up....

What is a Microtransaction? When video games first started being released, buying them was a fairly straightforward process. You walk into a tech or gaming store, purchase a game for your console or computer, and then slot it in when you get home. With the rise of the internet, especially high-speed broadband and WiFi connections, came online game selling. Now, you don’t have to leave your house to buy games. You can purchase the titles on digital stores such as Steam, Playstation Network, Nintendo eShop, and even mobile platforms such as the App Store and the Google Play Store....

Connect your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch to your computer, open iTunes, and you’ll see a large amount of space used by “Other” storage. iTunes won’t let you delete any of this “Other” data to free up space. Other storage is just other types of data that iTunes can’t display and manage for you. You can free up this space by leaving iTunes behind and managing the storage directly on your device....

Back in the day, it was common to apply dozens of tweaks to Windows XP to get things just the way you wanted and to significantly improve performance. Are there equivalent tweaks for the modern incarnations of Windows? 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 Anonymous Coward wants to tweak his Windows 7 installation:...

If you love playing games, then you definitely want the best performance you can get out of your computer, but what if games on your laptop slow down even with a high performance power plan selected? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answers to a confused reader’s question. 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....

Winamp was a popular music player for Windows in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but it still has some loyal fans to this day. Following four years of development, and several leaked beta patches, a new testing release is available for Winamp. Winamp 5.9 RC1 Build 9999 was released on July 26 for Windows, with many small improvements and bug fixes — Windows 11 is officially supported, you can play audio streams over HTTPS, and the VP8 codec is now properly recognized....

Keyboard shortcuts are an essential tool for dramatically speeding up everything you do on your computer. Geeks make extensive use of keyboard shortcuts, but every computer user can benefit from them. Web pages about keyboard shortcuts often overwhelm new users with a long list of shortcuts. We’ll help ease you into the keyboard shortcuts, demonstrating the most helpful ones you should get started with. Browser Tips The most essential keyboard shortcut most people don’t know about is Ctrl+F....

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 IMB poses the following question: Can IMB squeeze by with his page-file-workaround (in order to avoid drumming up some expensive vintage RAM)? Will it help if I buy more RAM since the current performance is already acceptable, will it be even faster? Will just having 256MB RAM but 4GB page file have some implications (maybe the HDD is being pounded or something)?...

If you have multiple hard drives connected to a USB hub, does copied data move through the computer first or directly through the USB hub itself? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answers to a curious reader’s questions. 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. Photo courtesy of itBox24 (Flickr). The Question SuperUser reader IAmJulianAcosta wants to know if two USB hub connected drives could transfer data directly via the USB hub and completely bypass the computer:...

Kubernetes has a reputation for being complicated. While it’s a fantastic piece of software, sometimes the benefits may not outweigh the added complexity, especially for small businesses managing simple deployments. Is plain old Docker good enough? What Kubernetes Is Great At Kubernetes (K8s) is used with Docker very often in professional environments, and this can make it seem like it’s an upgraded or more organized version of Docker. While this is true in some regards, it’s not the exact purpose of K8s....

Turns out, the Aircove is a pretty nifty bit of technology. It’s ridiculously easy to set up—though a bit of patience will come in handy—comes with a very user-friendly UI, and is a lot cheaper than the competition. While it has a few small issues, I could imagine it being a fan favorite. First Impressions and Available Ports A big selling point for the ExpressVPN Aircove, the biggest if you’ve ever set up a VPN router manually, is that it comes ready to go out of the box....

Historically laptops included a slot in the side for attaching security cables–as seen in the photo here–but increasingly more slender laptops like ultrabooks are omitting the lock-slot from their case design. How do you properly secure a laptop without one? 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 Kiranu needs to secure a laptop the public will have access to:...

Microsoft PowerPoint has several simple color adjustment options so that you can quickly and easily style the images in your PowerPoint presentation. Whether you want to create an artistic masterpiece or simply get your document to match your printer’s settings, you can change your images to black and white in PowerPoint How to Change a Picture to Black & White in Microsoft PowerPoint Changing your picture to black and white in Microsoft PowerPoint is easy!...

In Word, you can select one of several units of measurement for the ruler. You may be working on a document for someone who measures their margins, tabs, etc. in a different set of units than you usually use. It’s easy to change. Click the “File” tab. Click “Options” in the menu list on the left. The Word Options dialog box displays. Click “Advanced” in the menu list on the left side of the dialog box....

The Proof Is in Your Router If your internet connection feels slower than usual, you might suspect someone is using up your bandwidth through Wi-Fi. But slow internet is no proof: There could be many other reasons why your internet is slow. The only surefire way to see if someone is using your Wi-Fi is by looking at a list of connected devices in your router or Wi-Fi access point’s interface....