Technology

MacOS applications are installed a bit differently than Windows. Since they’re almost always single .app files, you can move them around your hard drive much easier. Here’s how to track down the ones you lost.

From the Applications Folder

This method is obvious—just open your Applications folder. You can usually find this in the sidebar, at the top of your hard drive, or in your Home folder (the one with your name on it). You can press the “List” button in the top bar to view everything in an easy to read list.

This won’t list every single Application on your drive though, so if you have an app you left in your Downloads folder, it won’t show up here.

RELATED: How to Launch Applications on Your Mac

Better Method: Smart Folders

Smart folders are wonderful. They’re like saved searches that you can pin to the sidebar of Finder. Here, we’ll be searching for all Applications.

Make a new smart folder from any Finder window by selecting File > New Smart Folder from the top menu bar.

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Hexgears

After an impressive debut with the low-profile X-1, I was eager to check out some of the other designs from rookie keyboard maker Hexgears. The Impulse, a mid-range model with Kailh’s Box switches, doesn’t disappoint.

This design is missing some of the more whiz-bang features of more expensive options, notably any kind of programming function. It makes up for it with a combination of utilitarian features and excellent build quality.While a less than perfect, the Impulse offers a light show that should appeal to gamers and a selection of switches that will make your fingers jump for joy. For under $100, it’s an easy mechanical keyboard to recommend for both beginners and connoisseurs.

BOX Switches Highlight the Hardware

Hexgears sent us the Impulse equipped with Kailh BOX White switches and “pudding” caps. The first point first: this is one of the only pre-built keyboards available with the BOX switch designs.

Hexgears offers smooth, splash-resistant BOX switches. Michael Crider

Broadly similar to the familiar Cherry key switch and its innumerable clones, Kailh’s BOX switches add a plastic square around the stem. This keeps the keys compatible with standard keycaps, while also making the travel much more stable and smooth. Hexgears is offering the keyboard with BOX Brown (middle stiffness and tactile, a noticeable bump with no click), BOX White (middle stiffness and clicky) or “Hako Clear,” a more niche and much stiffer tactile switch.

The Kono store sells the Impulse in only one size, but with combinations of single-color white and RGB LEDs and the “pudding” two-tone keycaps featured in this review, with prices ranging from $80-100 depending on those options. The keyboard is marketed as “spill proof,” but that’s more a function of the key switches themselves than anything else. With those stems extending all the way around the entrance of the switch and keycaps firmly in place, it’s very difficult for water (or Coke, or coffee, or beer, et cetera) to get to any of the delicate mechanisms inside. Hexgears says the keyboard is IP56 water-resistant, good for anything short of a full dunk into liquid.

The Impulse is offered in a full size format, with RGB or white-only LEDs. Michael Crider

Other charms of this design include per-key LED lighting and a full ring on LEDs around the plastic casing, PBT (read: fancy) plastic keycaps with shine-through legends, and a six-foot braided cord.

All the Lights and Sounds

In a word, this keyboard is solid. While you don’t get the full metal body, detachable USB cord, or modular switches of more premium designs, its excellent build quality surpasses most of the better-known keyboard builders in this price range.

Optional “pudding” PBT keycaps show off the key lighting. Michael Crider

Kailh’s BOX switches make for a smooth, even travel on the keys, and the two-tone pudding keycaps make for dramatic lighting even at lower intensities. While not explicitly a “gamer” board—the lack of linear options will surely bum some out—the independently-controlled light show for the keys and the LED ring will surely delight users who like to make their desk into a miniature rave. The key stems and standard layout are compatible with all ANSI-formatted keycap sets, so the Impulse is a good board if you’re looking to customize it after purchase.

The BOX switches and plastic case can repel spills and splashes. Michael Crider

Underneath you get the usual fold-out riser feet, though the keyboard is thick enough that I doubt many users will want an even taller profile. A gently curving deck, with a rather large printed logo on the top edge, is the only other adornment. If you need to open the plastic case (see the water resistant testing below) it’s easy to remove the screws and expose the circuit board.

Programming Could Be Easier

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Alexey Rotanov/Shutterstock

According to Microsoft, Windows 10 no longer optimizes external storage devices for “better performance” as of the October 2018 Update. Instead, it optimizes them for “quick removal.” Here’s what that means—and how to change it if you like.

We don’t think every Windows user has to change this option. Despite how tempting “better performance” sounds, the default “quick removal” policy is fine for most people.

Quick Removal vs. Better Performance

Windows has different “policies” you can select for external storage devices connected via USB or Thunderbolt, whether it’s a USB thumb drive or external hard drive. Each individual storage device has its own specific policy setting so that you can select different policies for different devices.

By default, Windows 10 now uses the “quick removal” policy. Whenever you write to the drive, Windows writes the data to the drive as quickly as possible. This ensures you can remove the USB drive without using the “Safely Remove Hardware” option—in theory. A program may be writing to your USB drive in the background anyway, so we recommend against it. This does dramatically reduce the risk of data corruption if you’re in the habit of safely removing storage devices before unplugging them.

However, this can slow down your applications. For example, when you’re saving a file to the external drive, the program you’re using may stop and wait for the save process to finish before you can continue working.

The “Better performance” option eliminates this slowdown. With this option, Windows will cache write operations to the drive and let applications proceed as if they had already written the data. Windows then performs the write operation in the background. That can make applications snappier.

On the other hand, this can result in data loss in some situations. Users think their files are saved and remove the drive—but the data wasn’t actually saved, and now the files on the drive may be corrupted. That’s why you should use the “Safely Remove Hardware” option before unplugging a drive in Windows. It tells Windows to write all that cached data to disk, ensuring all your data is safe before removing the drive.

It’s unclear how much “better performance” you’ll experience in practice. This will depend on the speed of your external storage device, how the application you’re using handles writing data, and how much data you’re writing at any given time. Microsoft clearly thinks the default “quick removal” is good enough for most people and that avoiding data loss is a priority. After all, many people don’t bother with “safely removing” devices before unplugging them. That makes “quick removal” a superior solution for many people, as it will reduce the risk of data loss when not safely removing a drive.

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Wink

We love Wink’s smarthome hub and have recommended it highly in the past. But the Wink Hub has been “temporarily unavailable” in stores for over five months now, and Wink won’t say why. What’s going on? Is Wink done for?

A Brief History of the Wink’s Many Owners

Wink has been around for years now and was formerly the product of a company named Quirky. Quirky began life as a startup company in 2009 with several, well, quirky but useful sounding ideas. They announced a mirror that eliminates shower steam fog, a set of wheels designed to turn any object into a remote-controlled car, and more. In 2014, Quirky partnered with GE to create a new company named Wink to focus on internet-connected devices.

Unfortunately, Quirky itself didn’t do well; it spent a lot on development with little return, and then Wink suffered a significant setback. Every Wink owner came home to find a hub “so secure that it is unable to connect to the Wink servers” (those were Wink’s words). The problem centered on an expired certificate, and unfortunately, solving it required a recall of many hubs. Between the cost of the recall and other financial difficulties, Quirky went bankrupt in 2015 and the Wink assets sold to Flextronics (now called Flex), which had been the leading supplier for Wink’s hardware and firmware. Flextronics, in turn, sold Wink to i.am+ in mid-2017, where the company remains to this day. If you’re not familiar with i.am+, it’s a company owned by will.i.am, with a focus on wearable technology. Quirky did come back to life but remains separate from Wink.

Wink Development Has Slowed to a Crawl

Smarthome hubs live and die by their product integrations. If a smarthome hub doesn’t work with as many smart devices as possible, then users will abandon it for a competitor that does support their gadgets. So it’s disconcerting that Wink last announced new product integrations in September 2017.

In any tech industry, let alone the smarthome sector, that’s an enormous amount of time without iteration. To illustrate that fact, the very next announcement from Wink was support for Cortana, complete with pictures of Windows Phones and mentions of the Harmon Invoke Cortana speaker. In the last four months, all of Wink’s blog post updates described firmware updates designed to fix issues. The last new feature, which realistically is an enhancement of Lookout, came over a year ago. But worse than lack of updates and features, it’s almost impossible to buy a Wink Hub now.

Wink’s Supply is Nonexistent

Wink’s online store has been entirely out of stock since at least November 2018, which isn’t a good sign. Any attempt to add a Wink product to the cart at its website led to “temporarily unavailable” errors. This is true for many of the third-party products on the Wink website as well, like lightbulbs and smart plugs. Even Amazon.com and Home Depot had little, if any, Wink products available.

We reached out to Wink about this back in November 2018. Wink said the problem was only temporary, and that it was working on restocking its online store soon:

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What Determined The Direction Of Clock Hand Movement?

1. Religious Tradition
2. Sundials
3. Right-Handed Clock Makers
4. A Royal Decree

Think you know the answer?

Josh Hendrickson

The Google Home Hub is exceptional for controlling smarthomes, checking weather and news, and setting alarms or timers. But, if you don’t have the Ambient Display set to show your photos, you’re missing out on one of its best features.

Google Home Hub Is More Than a Voice Assistant

You probably use voice commands quite a bit with your Google Home Hub, but that’s neglecting the main feature that separates the Hub from other Google Home devices—the display. The Home Hub’s display can show you the weather, play news with video, offer step by step recipe instructions, control your smart lights, and even play YouTube videos. But one of the Home Hub’s best features, ambient display mode, only appears when you’re not using the hub.

With the Home Hub, Google introduced the “Ambient EQ” light sensor, and this allows the device to change its brightness and color temperature to work best with the current environment. Essentially, the Hub should look good no matter what room you put it in. It’s hard to overstate just how well this works, but you will almost swear you’re looking at a printed photo instead of a screen.

So, when you’re not working with the Google Home Hub (which is probably most of the time), why not have it display your photos? Think of those digital photo frames from a decade ago—only, in this case, the final product isn’t terrible.

If you have more than one Home Hub, you can even have them show the same set of photos without adding them one at a time to each device—your photos just need to be stored in Google Photos. You can even choose which people and pets show up on your Hub.

Upload Your Pictures to Google Photos

To view your photos on your Home Hub, you’ll need to upload them to Google Photos. If you just want to see some beautiful art, however, you can skip straight to turning on Ambient Mode on your Google Home Hub.

If you haven’t already, you’ll want to start by uploading your pictures to Google Photos. It’s possible that all the photos you care about are already there, especially if you use an Android phone to take your pictures. But if you haven’t, start by going to Google Photos and logging in with your Google Account. Then upload any images you want to display on your Hubs. You can do this from the Google Photos iPhone and Android app as well, but if you already have all your photos on a computer, then you can load up everything at once from the browser.

Once you do have your photos uploaded, click on the search bar at the top of the screen (to the left of the Upload button). You’ll see a row of faces—click on them and label those faces to group your photos by people. This is useful later if you want your Google Home Hub to display specific people (like family members or pets).

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Who Invented The Countdown?

1. A Filmmaker
2. A Rocket Scientist
3. A Boy Scout
4. A DJ

Think you know the answer?

Hamilton Beach

If you use a lot of canned goods in your house, you’re really doing yourself a disservice if you don’t have an electric opener. Read on to find out more about the best options out there.

Many cans offer ring-pulls now but there are always plenty of exceptions too. A manual can opener is ideal if you’re camping, but when at home (and with a power source), it’s so much easier to plug in a can opener and let it do all the hard work. That’s even more important if you have any disabilities or weaknesses that make it hard to do things with your hands.

A good electric can opener doesn’t have to cost a fortune, so here’s a selection of the best devices out there, along with details on how they can help you out.

Best Overall: Hamilton Beach Smooth Touch Electric Automatic Can Opener ($30) Hamilton Beach

Hamilton Beach is a regular go-to place for good quality kitchen gadgets and it’s certainly the case here with the Smooth Touch Electric Automatic Can Opener.

It’s the priciest can opener here but it’ll last you a long time. Simply place your can at the top of the device then hold down the large lever above it, and the can opener does the rest. The pushdown lever is just the right size so that even if you have mobility issues, you won’t have trouble finding it. There’s no need for holding onto anything fiddly here.

The device has a side-cutting system that removes the top while leaving a smooth edge, so you limit your risk of cutting your finger at any point. It works on standard-size cans as well as cans with pop-top lids meaning there’s little it can’t handle. It looks pretty appealing too.

Buy on Amazon Best Combo Can Opener: Hamilton Beach Classic Chrome Heavyweight Can Opener ($20) Hamilton Beach

Two times where Hamilton Beach rules the roost? Well, yeah. In the case of the Classic Chrome Heavyweight Can Opener, that’s because it also has the bonus of including a knife sharpener on the bottom of the device. Is it as good as a dedicated knife sharpener? Not exactly, but for the average user, it’s far better than just leaving your knives to go dull which is far too common for many people rushing around their kitchen.

As well as that, its can opener is safe and sturdy and able to tackle any can you try it with. It has a magnet on the top so your can clings to it as it does its magic. The cutting unit is also removable so you can wash it safely and easily away from the rest of the device. It’s a high-quality combo unit.

Buy on Amazon Best Handheld Can Opener: Instecho Electric Can Opener ($20) Instecho

A handheld can opener can be pretty useful if you have limited space in your kitchen and you don’t want to need room for yet another electrical unit. The Instecho Electric Can Opener is small enough to store in a drawer while still competent enough that you don’t have to worry about using manual effort to open a can.

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txking / Shutterstock

Homebrew allows your Wii U to run apps Nintendo didn’t intend for you to run. This includes emulators, custom games, and mods. You can even install backup copies of your games on a hard drive and run them from there.

This process is long, but isn’t overly complicated and can be completed by the average user. You don’t run any risk of damaging or bricking your console with normal homebrew, so it’s entirely safe.

Why Homebrew?

Homebrew is a great way to breath new life into an old console. There’s plenty of cool things you can do with a modded console.

• Emulators: Want to run Nintendo 64 games on your Wii U? With emulators, the Wii U can play almost any Nintendo game that isn’t a 3DS or Switch exclusive.
• USB game loading: You only have a measly 16-32 GB of space on your Wii U, which is only enough to install a few games to the fast internal storage. Homebrew enables loading hundreds of games from USB storage, which you can dump yourself from the disc. This does enable piracy, but that’s not the primary focus.
• Cemu: Homebrewing your Wii U is the only way to play Wii U games on PC legally, and with Breath of The Wild now running much better on Cemu than it does on the Wii U and Nintendo Switch, there’s plenty of reason to.
• GameCube games: Nintendo simply flipped a switch to disable running GameCube games on your Wii U. The functionality is still there but disabled from within Wii mode. You can turn it back on and make full use of your console.
• Modding games: There’s an active scene for Smash 4 mods, including one called Melee HD which completely changes the gameplay. Homebrew is the only way to mod games.

There’s far too much content to show everything in detail here, but we’ll outline how to get your console homebrewed and to a point where you can begin installing whatever you’d like.

Prep Your SD Card

You’ll need to get the homebrew files onto your Nintendo Wii U. To do that, you’ll need an SD card reader. If your computer doesn’t have one, you can get an adapter on Amazon for less than $10.

There are two paths you can take with the homebrew process. The first uses a browser exploit to run arbitrary code and load the homebrew launcher. From there, you can install a custom firmware package called Mocha CFW, which removes code signing and lets you install the homebrew channel as an app on your Wii U. After that’s done, you can go in and out of homebrew apps without any issues.

The problem is, if you reboot your Wii U, you’ll have to redo the browser exploit. This is annoying, especially on the latest firmware, where the exploit has a lower success rate. The solution to this is another exploit called Haxchi to overwrite a Virtual Console DS game and turn it into a makeshift homebrew launcher, replacing the browser exploit entirely. But you’ll need a legitimate DS game—no way to pirate it, even with homebrew magic. Currently, the cheapest DS game on the Nintendo eShop is Brain Age, at $6.99, though others are supported. You can also make your Wii U run the exploit on boot, called Coldboot Haxchi, but it’s not necessary and is one of the few things that run the risk of bricking your console—in other words, making your Wii U hardware unusable.

Initial Setup

You’ll need a few files, regardless of which path you choose:

• The payload to execute when you run the browser exploit
• The homebrew launcher channel, which is loaded by the payload. Download both these .zip files.
• The homebrew app store, technically optional but it will allow you to install future apps solely from your Wii U.

Download all the .zip files, put them in a new folder, like this:

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A Popular Sci-Fi Show Forced The U.S. National Park Service To Post Warning Signs Where?

1. The Lincoln Memorial
2. The Hoover Dam
3. Yellowstone National Park
4. Alcatraz

Think you know the answer?

If you travel between countries that use different languages and varying currencies, adjusting your iOS device to use the local standards can be helpful. You can easily change both the region and language on your iPhone or iPad—here’s how.

When you set up a new iPhone or iPad you’re asked to confirm language and region there and then, but that doesn’t mean that those settings will always be correct. You might want to move to a new country, or even learn a new language, at which point changing a previous setting makes lots of sense. You might even find yourself in a position where you accidentally changed the language or region settings and don’t know how to change them back.

How to Change Your Region

Note that by changing your region, things like the default currency and temperature unit will also change depending on the region chosen.

Open the Settings app to get the ball rolling. Then tap the “General” button to proceed.

Next, tap “Language & Region.”

Tap “Region.”

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Are you bogged down by bulky laptops, clunky smart home interfaces, and an analog watch? Why do things the hard way? Grab some convenient smart home products, computers, smartwatches at a massive discount.

Right now, websites like Amazon, eBay, Best Buy, and Newegg, are running some impressive deals. These deals range from smart bulbs to jigsaws, but there are a few standout discounts that we’re really excited about.

Newegg’s $379 refurbished Surface Pro 3 deal is especially exciting. The Surface Pro 3 is a few years old, but it’s an incredible tablet that rivals most laptops in the $400 price range. If you aren’t interested in tablets, you should check out eBay’s $62 Lenovo Smart Display, or the $99 Falser 1 smartwatch from Skagen (with coupon code 30OFF).

Computers, Tablets, and Computer Accessories

Grab a premium laptop at a massive discount.

• Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Refurbished, $379 ($220 off) [Newegg]
• iPad 2018 Edition, $240 ($70 off) [Massgenie]
• MacBook Pro, $272 ($40 off) [Massgenie]
• Google Pixelbook Refurbished, $700 ($300 off) [Best Buy]
• Lenovo Ideapad Flex 14, $330 ($320 off) [Newegg]
• Sabrent Bluetooth USB Adapter, $4 ($3 off with coupon code 46GCVAQ2) [Amazon]

Phones and Smart Watches

Upgrade your phone or grab a stylish new smartwatch.

• Samsung Galaxy S8+ 64GB Unlocked, $390 ($200 off) [Best Buy]
• Google Pixel 2 Refurbished, $280 ($100 off) [Walmart]
• Moto G7 64GB Unlocked Cellphone, $200 ($100 off) [Best Buy]
• Skagen Faster 1 Smart Watch, $99 ($30 off with coupon code 30OFF) [Skagen]
• Skagen Falster 2 Smart Watch Refurbished, $123 ($62 off) [Skagen]
• OLEBR iPhone/Apple Watch/AirPod Charging Stand, $20 ($15 off with coupon code JRVKVPKR) [Amazon]

Smart Home Gadgets and Mesh Wi-Fi Routers

Upgrade your smart home with these killer deals.

• Lenovo Smart Display with Google Assistant, $62 ($130 off, an extra $7 off at checkout) [eBay]
• Echo Dot w/ Philips Hue White & Color Starter Kit, $90 ($110 off) [Amazon]
• Google Home Hub, $80 ($20 off) [Massgenie]
• Echo Dot and Amazon Smart Plug, $40 ($35 off) [Amazon]
• Philips Wake-Up Light Alarm Clock, $95 ($25 off) [Amazon]
• LIFX Smart Bulb 4-Pack, $145 ($50 off) [Amazon]
• Philips Hue White Smart Bulb 2-Pack, $37 ($12 off) [Home Depot]
• Nest Secure Alarm Starter Pack, $399 ($100 off) [Home Depot]
• NETGEAR Arlo Security Cameras 2-Pack, $100 ($150 off) [Best Buy]
• Elgato Stream Deck Controller, $119 ($30 off) [GameStop]
• TP-Link Smart Wi-Fi Router, $57 ($23 off) [Amazon]
• Netgear Mesh Wi-Fi System Refurbished, $180 ($70 off) [Amazon]

Games and TVs

Buy a discounted Nintendo Switch or grab a paper-thin QLED TV.

• Nintendo Switch Console, $260 ($40 off) [Massgenie]
• Bayonetta 2 + Bayonetta 1 Nintendo Switch, $50 ($10 off) [Amazon]
• Dungeon Rushers Nintendo Switch, $6 ($9 off) [Nintendo]
• Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition PS4, $15 ($43 off) [eBay]
• Gris PC, $13 ($4 off) [Steam]
• Samsung 55″ QLED Smart TV, $1,428 ($550 off with coupon code GIFHJW) [Google Express]

Speakers and Headphones

Make your music more enjoyable with these discounts.

• Audio Technica ATH-M50xBB Studio Headphones, $120 ($40 off) [Massgenie]
• Blackwave Wireless Bluetooth Headset, $12 ($28 off) [Groupon]
• Lenovo Air TWS Bluetooth Earbuds, $32 ($17 off with coupon code LeAirUS) [GearVita]

Everything Else

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Plus Snap’s big push to stay relevant, Amazon’s Alexa-powered AirPods alternatives, more Android Q news, and a lot more. It’s time to talk about the biggest, coolest, or generally most interesting stories from the last 24 hours.

Amazon Wants to Send 3,236 Satellites into Low Earth Orbit to Bring Internet to the Masses

Last September, there were murmurs of Amazon working on some sort of space project. More details recently arose, showing that the plan is to launch a bunch of satellites to trickle down internet access to underserved communities.

Seriously though, how cool is that?

Amazon is calling this effort “Project Kuiper,” (named after astronomer Gerard Kuiper) and the details were recently uncovered by GeekWire in a series of three filings made by the FCC. The plan is to launch 3,236 satellites—784 at 367 miles, 1,296 at 379 miles, and 1,156 at 391 miles—to provide internet access in places around the Earth that are either totally unserved or generally underserved. Amazon wants to bring internet access to the globe.

In response to the findings, GeekWire reached out to Amazon for a statement, at which time the project was confirmed:

Project Kuiper is a new initiative to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world. This is a long-term project that envisions serving tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet. We look forward to partnering on this initiative with companies that share this common vision.

The report goes on to state that the satellites would provide coverage ranging from 56 degrees north to 56 degrees south latitude, and that “about 95 percent of the world’s population lives within that wide swath of the planet.” Sorry, other five percent.

Unfortunately, Amazon didn’t provide a timeline for the launch of these satellites, nor did it speak about the logistics or economic aspect of the project.

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Personalizing your computer with a new wallpaper or fresh theme is one of the first things people do when they initially set it up, and Chrome OS is no different. Here’s how to customize the background and theme on your Chromebook.

How to Change Your Wallpaper

When choosing a wallpaper to use on your Chromebook, you can select from a wide range of pre-installed images or any of the images saved to your computer using the Wallpaper app.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is to open up the Wallpaper picker. Right-click—or two-finger tap—anywhere on the desktop, then click on “Set Wallpaper.”

The Wallpaper picker opens in a new window, and you have a few options to choose from for your new background. Select one of the categories from the left side of the window, then click on one of the many pictures on the right to set it as your wallpaper.

By clicking on “Daily Refresh,” located at the top of the picture selections, your desktop wallpaper will switch to a new image at the start of each day. This is great for those of us that often get bored of looking at one picture for too long.

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For new macOS users transitioning from Windows, the way you launch applications might be the first difference you notice. Even though they’re different, the tools on macOS are user-friendly and designed to make the process simpler.

From The Dock

The Dock is by far the simplest way to launch applications on macOS. It’s a lot like the Windows taskbar, containing an icon for each running app, except the macOS Dock comes with many default apps already pinned to it. It also shows notifications for each app and apps that need your attention will start bouncing.

You can click on any of these icons to launch the app. If the app is running, you’ll see a small white dot underneath the icon. You can click on any running app to automatically bring that app to the front.

The Dock is designed for you to customize. You can drag the applications around to change the order, you can drag an application out of the Dock to remove it, and you can drag one into the Dock to pin it there. Removing an app from the Dock does not delete it, and you can still launch it in other ways.

If you have an app running, you can force it to stay in the Dock by right-clicking (tap with two fingers on a touchpad) the icon, hovering over “Options” and selecting “Keep in Dock.”

From Launchpad

The Launchpad should be the 3rd icon in the Dock, a gray icon with a rocket ship.

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You or somebody in your household has long hair. The hair wages a constant battle against the shower drain. If you’re tired of dealing with a slow draining shower, we’re here to help.

Even if you do your best to catch the hair and stick it to the side of the shower stall to dispose of after your shower, a bunch of hair always makes its way to the drain despite your best efforts. The following tools are inexpensive and will help you prevent and deal with the inevitable clogs.

A Good Hair Catcher: The TubShroom ($13)

We gave the TubShroom a shoutout in our article Five $20 and Under Bathroom Upgrades You Should Buy Right Now, for good reason. It’s ridiculously good at what it does.

RELATED: Five $20 and Under Bathroom Upgrades You Should Buy Right Now

When it comes to hair clogs, the single best thing you can do is to keep the hair from getting in the drain in the first place. The TubShroom’s design is excellent at both preventing the hair from getting into the drain and keeping the water draining while you’re using it.

Unlike most hair catchers, it doesn’t slowly clog up with hair and start backing up. The mushroom-like design helps the hair wrap around the base and the top keeps the drain open so you don’t have to empty it while you’re showering. There’s even a wide version for bigger shower-stall drains called, naturally, the ShowerShroom.

Buy on Amazon A Flexible Snake: The Cobra Zip-It ($6)

You might only think of drain snakes in terms of the big ol’ steel cable monsters your plumber busts out to clear the main drain of your home. For nabbing a hair clog that’s right at the drain opening, however, a much lighter (and cheaper) tool is perfect.

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Tar files are compressed archives. You’ll encounter them frequently while using a Linux distribution like Ubuntu or even while using the terminal on macOS. Here’s how to extract—or untar—the contents of a tar file, also known as a tarball.

What Does .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 Mean?

Files that have a .tar.gz or a .tar.bz2 extension are compressed archive files. A file with just a .tar extension is uncompressed, but those will be very rare.

The .tar portion of the file extension stands for tape archive, and is the reason that both of these file types are called tar files. Tar files date all the way back to 1979 when the tar command was created to allow system administrators to archive files onto tape. Forty years later we are still using the tar command to extract tar files on to our hard drives. Someone somewhere is probably still using tar with tape.

The .gz or .bz2 extension suffix indicates that the archive has been compressed, using either the gzip or bzip2 compression algorithm. The tar command will work happily with both types of file, so it doesn’t matter which compression method was used—and it should be available everywhere you have a Bash shell. You just need to use the appropriate tar command line options.

Extracting Files from Tar Files

Let’s say you’ve downloaded two files of sheet music. One file is called ukulele_songs.tar.gz , the other is called guitar_songs.tar.bz2. These files are in the Downloads directory.

Let’s extract the ukulele songs:

tar -xvzf ukulele_songs.tar.gz

As the files are extracted, they are listed in the terminal window.

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Windows 10’s next update is the May 2019 Update, which is version 1903 and was codenamed 19H1 during development. It features a light theme, speed improvements, and lots of polish. There are no crazy new features like My People or Timeline.

This article includes everything new as of Insider Preview build 18362.30, released on April 4, 2019. Microsoft previously called this Windows 10’s April 2019 Update, but it was delayed. The update will spend time in the “Release Preview” ring being tested before a stable release later in May.

Big Changes to Windows Update Microsoft

Microsoft announced it’s making big changes to the way Windows 10 updates. You’ll have much more control over the way Windows 10 installs updates—or not.

Specifically, Windows 10 will no longer automatically install big updates like the May 2019 Update and October 2018 Update every six months without your permission. Now, you’ll see a notification and it’s your choice when you want to install the update.

Don’t want to install the update? That’s fine. You can keep using your current version of Windows 10 for as long as it’s supported with security updates—that’s 18 months after release. But, once every 18 months, you will be forced to update to keep getting security fixes. This is much better than once every six months, and it gives you a lot more control.

On top of that, Microsoft will now let Home users pause updates—just as Professional users can—for up to 35 days. You must pause in seven day periods, but you can pause up to five times. And, after you check for updates in Windows Update, Windows won’t automatically install them—you’ll have a choice to pause the updates, if you like.

RELATED: Microsoft Abandons Windows 10’s Constant Forced Updates

Speed Improvements (Thanks to Better Spectre Fixes) VLADGRIN/Shutterstock.com

The news of Spectre shook the industry at the start of 2018. Spectre is a design flaw in CPUs, and it allows programs to escape their restrictions and read other programs’ memory spaces. Microsoft patched Windows to help block Spectre attacks, but the resulting patches reduced your PC’s performance in some scenarios—especially on PCs from 2015 and earlier, which don’t have the CPU features needed to speed up the fix.

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What Was The First Volunteer Distributed Computing Project?

1. Folding@home
2. GIMPS
3. SETI@home
4. BitCoin

Think you know the answer?

Microsoft has a major announcement today: Windows 10 will no longer automatically install those big feature updates every six months. Home users can pause smaller updates, too. In fact, Windows will even let you pause updates after checking for them!

This is huge. It’s Microsoft’s biggest change in Windows strategy since the company released Windows 10. Microsoft is giving up on “Windows as a service” that is automatically updated outside of your control.

Here’s What’s Changing in Windows 10 Microsoft

In a blog post on the official Windows blog, Microsoft’s Mike Fortin explained what’s changing with Windows Update:

• Starting with the May 2019 Update (previously called the April 2019 Update), you will see a notification that the update is available when Microsoft thinks it’s ready for your PC. However, it’s your choice when—and whether—to install it. Windows 10 won’t just start downloading and installing it without your say-so. You’ll have to click “Download and install now.”
• When you click “Check for Updates” in Windows 10, you can choose whether you want to install the resulting updates or pause updates for up to 35 days. This pause feature is new to Windows 10 Home, and was previously only available in Windows 10 Professional. Previously, Windows automatically installed updates right after checking. And yes, this applies to smaller security, stability, and driver updates, too. (You can only pause seven days at a time, but you can pause up to five times in a row.)
• Windows 10 will still automatically install a feature update when your current version reaches “end of service.” This happens about every 18 months—see the Windows lifecycle fact sheet. That means, if you were using Windows 10’s Fall Creators Update (1709), your PC would be about to install a feature update—but you wouldn’t have had to install the last few feature updates. (So yes, some forced feature updates remain—but only once every 18 months or so, after a lot of testing.)
• Microsoft promises to put more work into testing feature updates. For example, Microsoft says it “will increase the amount of time that the May 2019 Update spends in the Release Preview phase.” That should be easy, as the bungled October 2018 Update spent no time in Release Preview at all before release! Unfortunately, this forthcoming update already has a blue screen bug that won’t be completely fixed.

Microsoft Surrenders and PC Users Win

Microsoft is giving us—and PC users—a lot of what we asked for here! We said Windows wasn’t a service and Microsoft should give PC users more choice. We called for Microsoft to test updates more thoroughly than the botched October 2018 Update, which deleted some people’s files and had other bugs. We warned people not to click “Check for Updates” because Microsoft would treat you as a “seeker” and force updates on your PC before they had gone through testing. We said Home users should get more control over updates, including the ability to pause updates when desired.

We haven’t been the only ones calling for Microsoft to slow down, of course. It feels like everyone covering Windows has done so at some time or another—for example, see Paul Thurrot’s take. Now, Windows 10 is finally changing for the better.