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There are plenty of third-party programs and other widgets that may help you keep information close at hand. Here’s a neat trick to keep short notes or other small pieces of information accessible from the taskbar without any extra software. Folder-Based Toolbars You may be familiar with the Quick Launch toolbar that was available in earlier versions of Windows, but has been hidden or removed since. Did you know you can bring it back, or even make your own toolbar like it?...

If you’ve got one of the newer Kindle devices, you’ve got the ability to read PDF files built right in—very convenient, but how does it work? Let’s take a quick look at how to get them on the Kindle. Note: this isn’t exactly rocket science, and the majority of Kindle owners probably already know how to do this, but we figured we’d cover how to do it anyway just in case you’re considering buying a Kindle....

Your PC makes lots of Internet connections in a day’s business, and not all of them are necessarily sites you’re aware connections are happening with. While some of these connections are harmless, there is always a chance that you have some malware, spyware, or adware using your Internet connection in the background without your knowledge. Here’s how to see what’s going on under the hood. We’re going to cover three ways you can view your PC’s active connections....

Everyone likes to know who’s calling before they actually pick up the phone, and the easiest way to achieve that is with custom ringtones for specific callers. That way, when your phone starts blasting “Cherry Pie,” you know it’s your wife. Or when it’s “Roll Out (My Business),” you know it’s your boss. Fortunately, this is a simple process in Android. Here’s how to do it. Before we get started, you should be aware that the process may vary slightly between manufacturers and their respective custom skins....

Time might be constant, but your time zone doesn’t have to be. If you’re part of a global team, you might prefer to switch your time zone in Google Calendar to make sure you’re not missing important meetings or events. Thankfully, Google Calendar offers various settings for Google account users to change to different time zones. You can set a one-off time zone to an event, or set primary and secondary time zones for an entire calendar or account....

Android is the latest mobile OS to take the world by storm, but everyone doesn’t have access to the latest mobile devices. Thankfully, there’s an easy way to run Android on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. Google provides an Android emulator with their SDK, which is designed to let developers test their apps on Android before running them on handsets. We can use this to test drive Android on our computer, here’s how to do it....

For years, users have wondered why on earth Microsoft wouldn’t make the taskbar customizable and usable across multiple monitors. Luckily Windows 8 and 10 include a new feature that makes it much better. Here’s a quick look for those that haven’t already seen them. The new Taskbar in Windows 8 (and Windows 10) finally spans multiple monitors, and can be customized so that the taskbar buttons on each monitor are the buttons for windows open on that monitor....

Taints and tolerations are a Kubernetes mechanism for controlling how Pods schedule to the Nodes in your cluster. Taints are applied to Nodes and act as a repelling barrier against new Pods. Tainted Nodes will only accept Pods that have been marked with a corresponding toleration. Taints are one of the more advanced Kubernetes scheduling mechanisms. They facilitate many different use cases where you want to prevent Pods ending up on undesirable Nodes....

Why Router Firmware Updates Are Important Router updates are especially important. Your wireless router is generally the one device you connect directly to the internet. It functions as a firewall and protects all your other devices from incoming traffic thanks to network address translation (NAT.) Security holes in routers can lead to them becoming infected by malware and joining a botnet. Disabling remote access to your router is a critical security tip, as it shields your router’s administration interface from the internet....

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a dependable work-horse when it comes to eradicating malware, and definitely a recommended app for anyone’s security setup. This week Malwarebytes has released a new stable version that features a host of improvements, new features, and a redesigned interface. Screenshot courtesy of the Malwarebytes News Blog. The latest Malwarebytes release packs a punch in upgraded abilities and features as seen in the quote below: From the Press Release: The new product brings together five powerful technologies in a lightweight 16MB download for the first time, the combination of which provides dynamic protection from advanced threats....

Hollywood doesn’t understand technology and “hacking.” That’s what we thought, anyway. But many of the ridiculous things we’ve seen in movies turned out to be completely true. We laughed off many of these myths when we saw them in movies. “Don’t believe what you see on TV,” we told people. Boy, were we wrong. The NSA Spying on Everybody One of the oldest themes is a government that knows all and sees all....

Keep in mind though that playing multiplayer games requires a basic Nintendo Switch Online subscription, which costs $19.99 per year. That means even free-to-play online titles require some form of premium membership. Not all of the games below are multiplayer experiences, but the vast majority of them are. Tetris 99 Play Video How does Tetris battle royale sound? That’s the idea behind Tetris 99, a Switch-exclusive free-to-play online multiplayer title that pits you against 98 other players in a bid to be the last person standing....

The Docker build context refers to the files and directories that will be available to the Docker engine when you run docker build. Anything not included in the build context won’t be accessible to commands in your Dockerfile. You should audit your use of docker build to keep your build contexts small. Accidentally including unnecessary files can result in an excessively large build context, which will lead to longer builds....

The Vivaldi web browser isn’t just a browser: it added an email client last year as a beta feature. Now the email client is officially exiting beta with today’s 1.0 release. Vivaldi Mail is a full-featured mail client built into the Vivaldi web browser, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It’s similar to apps like Apple Mail and Thunderbird, with a locally-synchronized copy of all your email in a searchable index — in other words, it doesn’t rely on a cloud service with copies of all your messages, which can be a problem with with Newton Mail and some other apps....

So What Are They? These two folders are leftover folders created by Windows during the upgrade process, but unfortunately they don’t get deleted at the end of the setup process. You’ll only see them if you’ve got the option to show hidden files enabled under Organize –> Folder and Search Options. The good news is that you can definitely get rid of them. Keep reading. Use Disk Cleanup The easiest way to remove them is to just run Disk Cleanup (type it into the start menu search box), and then click the button to “Clean up system files”, which will re-launch Disk Cleanup as administrator....

Docker is a tool for running your applications inside containers. Containers package all the dependencies and code your app needs to run into a single file, which will run the same way on any machine. What Is Docker? Docker is similar in concept to Virtual Machines, except it’s much more lightweight. Instead of running an entire separate operating system (which is a massive overhead), Docker runs containers, which use the same host operating system, and only virtualize at a software level....

iCloud is Apple’s cloud storage service, offering integrated online backup and syncing for Apple devices. iCloud is built-in on iPhones, iPads, and Macs, but can also be accessed on Windows. While other services allow you to upload any type of file, Apple chooses to place your data into different compartments. This can be confusing — for example, iCloud will store your documents forever, but will delete your stored photos eventually....

Wordle is a simple word game that’s positively blown up recently. It was only a matter of time before a big company moved in, and The New York Times has purchased the web-based game for somewhere “in the low seven figures.” NYT didn’t provide an exact figure when it announced its purchase of the game, but for Josh Wardle, who made Wordle by himself, anything in the seven-figure range sounds like a life-changing amount of money....

We recently covered how to let people use your computer without giving them access to all your stuff using your operating system’s guest mode feature. A faster alternative would be to give them their own, isolated web browser. The below methods definitely aren’t as secure. Anyone could leave your guest-mode web browser and switch back to your main one or explore your computer’s files. That said, if you aren’t too paranoid, these methods can still be a decent alternative....

Even though both Windows and its users have made the jump to the 21st century, there’s still some lingering 1990s-era annoyances hiding out in the OS including Windows’ tenacious desire to create thumbnail files (and then refusing to delete them). Read on as we solve the “File In Use” deletion error problem. What’s the Problem? When you’re tidying files, deleting older archives, or otherwise cleaning up after yourself it’s not uncommon to run into the very annoying “File In Use” error....