How-To Geek

MacOS Mojave brought with it a slew of new features, the most striking of which is a system-wide dark mode that applies to all native Apple apps and compliments Apple’s Night Shift to ease your eyes late at night.

How to Turn On Dark Mode

The option for Dark mode is in the System Preferences app, which you can open from the Dock, your Applications folder, or by clicking the Apple icon at the top of your screen and selecting “System Preferences.” When you’re there, click on “General.”

At the top of the window, you’ll see the toggle between light mode and dark mode. You can click either one to switch to the corresponding mode.

There’s another feature to set here: the accent color. This will determine the color of buttons and any highlights in native apps. Surprisingly, setting the accent color to “Graphite,” the gray color, makes dark mode slightly darker. It changes from a bluish-gray to a flat gray color, which you may prefer.

Unfortunately, this also makes all the accents very dull, which does look a bit strange, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get this flat black color without using the Graphite accent.

How to Enable Night Shift

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Windows 10, by default, sends everything you search for in the Start Menu to their servers to give you results from Bing search—so you better make sure that you don’t type anything private into your own PC’s Start Menu. Or, you could just disable the Bing integration in the Start Menu.

Update: We now have a new solution that works in modern versions of Windows 10! We tested this method with Windows 10’s October 2018 Update.

It’s worth noting that Android’s default search and even iOS will also send your search results to their servers to try and get more relevant results—but somehow it seems different when you’re on your personal computer in your house trying to search through your personal files.

We’re definitely glad that they included a way to easily disable the web integration—it’s just worth noting that if you want to use Cortana, you don’t have any choice in whether the Start Menu uses Bing, so you’re going to have to disable Cortana to disable the web integration.

How to Disable Bing Integration in the Start Menu

You must edit the Windows registry to disable web searches in the Start menu.

Here’s our standard warning: The Registry Editor is a powerful tool and making the wrong change can make your system unstable or even inoperable. This is a straightforward change and, if you follow the instructions, you should be fine. But if you’ve never used it before, consider reading about how to use the Registry Editor. We always recommend backing up your Registry (and your computer) before making changes.

To start, open the Registry Editor by hitting Start and typing “regedit”. Double-click the “Registry Editor” shortcut that appears (or press Enter) and click Yes to the UAC prompt.

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Which Popular Service Was Initially Considered An April Fools’ Joke?

1. Gmail
2. Evernote
3. YouTube
4. Remember the Milk

Think you know the answer?

When Apple says something is “available now,” it doesn’t play around. iOS 12.2 is available on all compatible devices now, and it includes the new News+ service (along with some other stuff).

The company announced its long-rumored News+ service today, which offer access to over 300 magazines and several newspapers for just $9.99 a month for the entire family. News+ is the only service that was announced and is also available today—everything else (Apple Card, TV+, etc.) is coming later this year.

That’s arguably not even the most interesting part of the 12.2 changelog, however—that award goes to the inclusion of “AirPower” as a new supported device. It’s been rumored that we should expect to see AirPower hit the scene very soon and this update seems to all but confirm that to be true.

Otherwise, there are four new Animoji (boar, giraffe, owl, and shark), support for HomeKit TVs, Control Center updates, Wallet fixes, and more. Here’s the full changelog, as spotted by AppleInsider:

HomeKit

• Support For HomeKit TVs
• “Allow Speaker Access” becomes “Allow Speaker & TV Access” in Home app

Control Center

• A new responsive AirPlay icon has been added to the music widget in Control Center
• New animation when jumping to Music from the Control Center widget
• New Screen Mirroring icon in Control Center
• New icon for Remote widget in Control Center
• Remote widget in Control Center was redesigned (to support HomeKit TVs as well as Apple TVs)
• Remote widget in Control Center is now full screen
• Skip forward/back have returned while playing content
• New “Now Playing” UI with new remote buttons

Wallet

• App icon from the bottom was removed of third-party cards
• The ellipses moved from bottom right to top
• Info ellipsis is solid black now
• Latest transaction below is in a rounded bubble with icon
• Tapping the latest transaction takes you to more info-screen
• Redesigned transaction info screen
• Card details page was redesigned with the card picture on top and name centered below, blue “info” and “transactions” buttons are black
• On transactions page, all transactions are in bubble-style grid
• Now easy tap call and website buttons under Card Info
• Apple Pay card now has easy add money and transfer to bank buttons instead of just text

Safari

• Safari warns users about websites that don’t support HTTPS
• Safari search predictions now have arrows to the right
• Keyboard now has a color picker

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Adding borders around your images is a good way to give them a little extra flair. Google Docs has a set of built-in features for adding borders and, while they’re not as sophisticated as the options offered in something like Office, they do the job.

Adding Borders Around Images in Google Docs

To add a border around an image, go ahead and open the Google Doc that contains the image. If you haven’t inserted your image yet, head over to the “Insert” tab, select “Image,” then choose the respective option to locate your image.

After inserting the image, you might need to resize it. To do this, select the image and then grab the handle on any corner. Drag to resize.

On the toolbar, you’ll see three separate border tools. They are Border color (1), Border weight (2), and Border dash (3).

Go ahead and select “Border color” first. Once selected, pick a color you like from the dropdown menu. In this example, we’ll go with a simple black.

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If you’re the kind of person that loves a good mystery these subscription boxes bring the thrill of murder mysteries, escape rooms, and more, right into your living room, month after month.

While mystery games are popular for good reason, a much more inventive way of tackling such challenges is through the use of a subscription box service so you get a new mystery every month. With dozens of different services out there, we’ve narrowed things down to the six best.

Now, we appreciate that not everyone has as much free time as they’d like. So, we’ve looked at mystery subscription boxes that work best in one hit, as well as mysteries that work over many months by unfolding a small part of the story every month. There’s room too for particularly tricky challenges, as well as sets that can be played by the whole family. Whatever your interests, there’s a challenge here that you’re going to love.

Here’s a look at some of our favorite mystery and immersive story subscription boxes.

Best For A Six Month Run: Hunt A Killer ($25 per month) Hunt A Killer

Laid out kind of like a TV show—in that it has seasons of six episodes/boxes spread out over 6 months—Hunt A Killer lures you in with the unnerving idea of a serial killer delivering a package to your door each month. Yup, this isn’t for family consumption.

Each month, you’re sent a box of clues and it’s down to you to figure out what the heck is going on. There’s evidence, statements to read over, as well as more obvious clues to piece together. The first month also includes a detective’s notebook and you’re going to need it to write down what your ideas are.

Hunt A Killer is based around a fictional town, right down to offering up an authentic yearbook, and providing you with hand-crafted police records and newspaper clippings. It’s an impressively immersive world with a private Facebook group enabling you to group up together and discuss what could be going on.

Subscribe to Hunt A Killer Best Self Contained One Hit: Escape The Crate ($30 every 2 months) Escape The Crate

Not all mystery subscription boxes have a bloodthirsty murderous theme to them. Escape The Crate is one such example. It’s an escape room in a box, basically. Each month, you and a group of friends can work together to solve riddles, puzzles, and codes, all in a bid to escape the virtual room within the box. Every other month, you’re provided with a different theme from science fiction style alien escapades to defusing time bombs or escaping from a pirate ship.

Because of the nature of the adventure, it works quite well with younger players so this is ideal for a family with young teens who are keen to solve puzzles together. Each session only takes about an hour and a half but it’s the perfect way to enjoy family time away from the games console or TV.

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Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock

The interesting thing about Monday morning is that, well, there was probably a lot that happened over the weekend. The good news is that now you can catch up on everything you missed from March 23rd-25th  all in one spot.

Apple News: Today’s the Day

Apple is expected to announce its long-rumored streaming TV and news services at a 10:00 AM PT event today. We’ll be covering all the details here at HTG when it happens, but here’s what we “know” so far (based on rumors, that is).

First of all, the company’s news service is rumored to be $9.99 a month and offer users access to over 200 magazines and dozens of newspapers. There are some big names along for the ride, but early reports stated that other news outlets weren’t as pleased with Apple’s proposed terms—it wants 50 percent of the take. That’s pretty steep, but if it gets more people’s eyes on the content, it may still be worth it. According to an early report from 9toMac, magazine publishers were more than happy with the terms.

Otherwise, we expect to see Apple’s streaming TV service today as well. The company has been working on original content for over a year now, which will unsurprisingly be the launchpad of its new service. It’s also said that it will offer access to other services—like HBO, for example—for $9.99 a month (each).

While there could be other things thrown in (we all know how Apple loves to hold surprises till the very end), that’s the basic gist of what we expect to see.

Microsoft and Windows News: Chromium Edge Everywhere

More and more details are starting to trickle out about Microsoft’s move to Chromium for Edge.

• The Verge got an exclusive hands-on look at the first Chromium Edge builds, where writer Tom Warren walks you through some of the best features and what to expect. [The Verge]
• Shortly after that, the first Chromium Edge build leaked online. We don’t recommend downloading it, of course, as it’s nearly impossible to verify that this is indeed a legitimate leak. [The Verge]
• In less interesting but still sort of interesting news, Bing maps got route traffic coloring. It’s the little things, you know? [MSPowerUser]
• We might see a Fluent Design makeover to File Explorer this year. This would be interesting because compared to most other aspects of Windows, File Explorer is pretty antiquated. I just hope this new version has tabs. [MSPowerUser]

This Chromium Edge thing is undoubtedly interesting—a custom Edge version that will support Chrome extensions? Intriguing indeed. But as curious as I may be about checking it out, the idea of downloading a “leaked” browser with no way to confirm where it came from makes me feel itchy. That’s something I’m interested in, and you should feel the same way. Until there’s an official release, I say we all live this one vicariously through The Verge.

Google and Android News: YouTube’s Insane Traffic Numbers

YouTube’s web traffic report, Stadia backlash, and hands-on with Maps’ upcoming walking directions were all great talking points from the weekend.

• YouTube apparently makes up 40 percent of the web’s mobile traffic. FORTY. Just think about how staggering that number is for a minute—that’s almost half of all web traffic. To one site. [9to5Google]
• Speaking of YouTube, while its traffic is great, apparently its big-budget originals aren’t. So it’s canceling most of them and making them available for free. [Engadget]
• There’s still a lot we don’t know about Google’s upcoming game streaming platform, and that’s troubling to a lot of people—especially the ones who play games. [Kotaku]
• Gizmodo’s David Nield took Google Maps’ upcoming AR (augmented reality) walking directions for a spin over the weekend, which the company originally showed off at Google I/O last year. This seems really rad, especially in crowded places that can get terribly confusing. [Gizmodo]
• Maps is also getting the ability to add public events for some users. [Android Police]
• Google is currently testing a separate menu for extensions, which would honestly be great. Currently, all extensions populate either in the toolbar or clutter up the top of the menu, so keeping them tucked away somewhere else would be nice. [Techdows]
• In the ultimate cross-promotion, NBC shot an entire episode of The Tonight Show using the Galaxy S10+. I can’t tell if this is brilliant marketing or pure desperation from Samsung. [Engadget]

This weekend (and Monday morning) offered an interesting mix of news, but the highlight to me is definitely YouTube’s mobile traffic numbers. It makes sense, honestly, but what I’d really love to know is how much of that 40 percent is driven by little kids watching YouTube on their tablets or parent’s phone. Too bad there’s probably no way to pull that information.

Everything Else: AT&T’s 5G E Is Slower Than 4G, Two New Switches (Maybe)

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Amazon

Now that the weather’s warming up (kind of), you can really appreciate the portability of an iPad, or a Chromebook. So why not buy one at a serious discount?

Right now, there are some killer deals on Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, and Steam. These deals range from tablets to video games, to computer mice, to Walgreens Photo discounts. But our favorite deals (by far) are the $700 iPad Pro (newest model), the heavily discounted Samsung Chromebook Pro and Chromebook Plus, and the $89 CORSAIR Strafe gaming keyboard.

Tablets and Phones

Grab a discounted iPad Pro, or save $50 on a Fire tablet.

• iPad Pro Newest Model, $700 ($100 off) [Amazon]
• Fire HD 8 Tabet, $50 ($30 off) [Amazon]
• Fire HD 10 Tablet, $100 ($50 off) [Amazon]
• LG V35 ThinQ 64GB Unlocked, $360 ($245 off) [eBay]
• iPhone 7 32GB Factory Unlocked, $200 ($100 off) [eBay]

Laptops, Chromebooks, and Accessories

Grab a new laptop, keyboard, or mouse.

• Samsung Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 Laptop, $380 ($170 off) [Amazon]
• Samsung Chromebook Pro 2-in-1 Laptop, $505 ($50 off) [Amazon]
• MacBook Air 13.3″, $1000 ($200 off) [Best Buy]
• Razer Blade Gaming Laptop, $1600 ($700 off) [Microsoft]
• Lenovo Flex 5 15.6″ Laptop, $630 ($370 off) [Officedepot]
• Dell Inspiron Laptop, $500 ($100 off) [Walmart]
• SteelSeries Apex 100 Gaming Keyboard, $15 ($25 off) [Newegg]
• CORSAIR Strafe RGB MX Silent Gaming Keyboard, $89 ($60 off) [Best Buy]
• Logitech MX Master 3-Device Mouse, $47 ($52 off) [Amazon]

Games and TVs

Whether you’re a Nintendo Switch fan or a dedicated PC gamer, we’ve got the deals for you.

• Nintendo Switch Console w/ Pro Controller, $310 ($55 off with coupon code SNG55) [Rakuten]
• Octopath Traveler Nintendo Switch, $45 ($15 off) [Amazon]
• PlayStation Plus 12-Month Subscription, $45 ($15 off) [Best Buy]
• 80% off Serious Sam Games [Steam]
• Gog Spring Sale, Up to 80% off PC Games [Gog]
• Civilization VI Gold Edition PC, $32 ($68 off) [Green Man Gaming]
• Double Cross PC, $10 ($10 off) [Chronogg]
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, $25 ($5 off) [Fanatical]
• Lobotomy Corporation PC, $17 ($8 off) [Steam]
• Polaroid 50″ 4K Smart TV, $260 ($130 off) [Walmart]

Everything Else

Photo printing? Streaming sticks? Bluetooth Speakers? We’ve got you covered.

• 50% off Everything Photo Related (with coupon code HAPPYPICS) [Walgreens]
• Roku Streaming Stick 4K HDR w/ 3 Months CBS All Access, $50 ($10 off) [Walmart]
• JBL Charge 4 Bluetooth Speaker, $120 ($30 off) [Best Buy]
• JBL Charge Xtreme 2 Bluetooth Speaker, $220 ($80 off) [Best Buy]

Remember, good deals can’t last forever. Grab that new iPad Pro or mechanical keyboard before it’s too late.

Whenever you visit a website on an iPhone or iPad, snippets of data are saved to your device. Cookies and other cached data eventually start to take up significant space, so you may want to clean them out. Here’s how.

Periodically clearing the data that iOS stores can be a good idea for a number of reasons. Beyond the fact that collectively these websites store quite a bit of data on your devices, that data can be used to track your visits, too. Websites save cookies to your devices to be able to tell when you visit again, and even though that can be beneficial to keep you logged in and save preferences, not everyone likes it.

If you want to make sure that websites can’t keep tabs on you, you might also want to make sure you delete the information they save to your device. If you’re short on space, you might just want to clear out of all cruft, too.

How to See and then Remove Data

To get started, open the Settings app. Next, tap “Safari.”

Now, scroll to the very bottom of the screen and tap “Advanced.”

Next, tap “Website Data” at the top of the screen.

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Your Mac’s Mail app supports multiple accounts with separate inboxes, but you can’t add new accounts directly from the app’s settings. To change accounts, you’ll need to use the System Preferences.

How to Add or Remove Email Accounts in Mail

The accounts that Mail uses come directly from the “Internet Accounts” section in the system preferences. If you want to add a new account, you’ll have to do it there.

To launch System Preferences, click the Apple menu at the top of your screen and select “System Preferences.” You can also launch it from your Dock or your Applications folder.

Click “Internet Accounts” in the System Preferences window.

You’ll see a list that probably includes your iCloud account. To add a new email, click the “+” button at the bottom of the list, and then click on whichever mail provider you’re using. If you don’t see your provider, you can add your email manually with “Add Other Account.”

You’ll be shown a popup asking you to sign in to your mail account. Enter your email and password for the account you want to use, and click “Next.”

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iPort

I love having a big tablet in a dedicated stand on my desk, and I love wireless charging. So I was excited to check out iPort’s Charge Case and Stand 2, which does what it says on the box.

Technically the iPort design uses POGO plugs on its custom case and stand, so the charging isn’t wireless. But it achieves that easy set-it-down-pick-it-up motion that’s made Qi chargers so popular. $160—more for some iPad designs—is a lot to ask for, even considering you get both a stand and a charger in one package. But for the niche audience it serves, this is a great solution.

iPort Does What Apple Doesn’t

It’s hard to fault Apple for keeping wireless charging restricted to the iPhone: putting it in the iPad would mean getting rid of its tough metal shell, and the ergonomics of cases and stands don’t really mesh well with Qi. But I have fond memories of my HP TouchPad and Nexus 7, both tablets with wireless charging functionality, and I often wish I had something similar for my Pixel C, a constant desk companion. This iPort setup gives me a reason to make the switch.

Michael Crider

The case comes in two primary parts, which slide over either end of the iPad and click nicely together. It’s a bit thick—especially on the bottom, where the case requires a pass-through Lightning charger and a bit of extra space to let sound out through the bottom-firing speakers. But the soft-touch plastic feels nice in your hand, and adds only about three quarters of an inch to the iPad’s height. It feels more than capable of taking a few hits.

Michael Crider

Speaking of that pass-through port: you can take it out with a bit of effort, exposing the Lightning port for charging or data. This is the one aspect of the design that’s less than elegant: I think iPort could have moved the POGO pins further apart and placed a permanent Lightning port on the exterior of the case. That would have meant one less part to lose, and no need to shove it in and out on the rare occasions when a cable connection is necessary.

Cleared for Docking

On the rear of the case are two sets of POGO pins: one for portrait and one for landscape. Set the iPad down in the dock, and it starts to charge. Magnets help make sure the case is secured in the correct spot. Simple. Easy. Appealing. Once the iPad is in place it charges at the maximum rate.

Michael Crider

There’s some thoughtful design that goes into the dock, too. A subtle painted dot on the right side of the case lets you see where to rest the tablet, since the extended bottom edge makes it slightly asymmetrical. While the dock is for power only and the large brick can’t connect to your computer for data, it includes two handy USB ports on the dock itself for easily charging other devices at the same time.

Michael Crider

The dock is heavy and sturdy, with a rubberized base that doesn’t move around when you’re setting down or picking up the iPad. The angle isn’t adjustable, but the it should work for most desk and nightstand setups. You may need to make some adjustments if you want another base for your kitchen.

Conclusion

I really enjoy the design of this combination case-dock. I know the appeal is limited—for the same price you could get a super-premium leather cover and a pretty good, non-charging stand. But if you like the convenience of never having to plug your tablet in, I think it’s worth the expense.

Michael Crider

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Fatmawati Achmad Zaenuri/Shutterstock.com

This tutorial will show you how to use Linux filesystem events (notify) to get notified every time a file appears in a directory. You could use these as triggers to automate common tasks on your system.

We’re going to write a script that watches a directory and acts on new files that are added. Each file is gzipped and moved to another directory, as soon as it is detected. The script uses the inotify subsystem, through a utility called inotify-tools. But first, let’s install the tool and experiment.

Installing inotify-tools and gzip

Use apt-get to install this package onto your system if you’re using Ubuntu or another Debian-based distribution. On other Linux distributions, use your Linux distribution’s package management tool instead.

sudo apt-get install inotify-tools gzip Experimenting with inotify-tools

Let’s begin by watching a directory and seeing what events initiate when new files arrive. We will use a tool called  inotifywatch , which is part of inotify-tools. Create a new directory called “incoming”:

mkdir incoming

Start watching this directory by executing the following command:

inotifywatch -v incoming

This will instruct inotify to watch for all filesystem events in the “incoming” directory. The -v option makes the tool print out extra information about what it’s doing. We haven’t specified a timeout option (-t ), and the command will keep gathering events until we exit with CTRL+C. At this point, our terminal should look something like this:

Open a new terminal window (or tab) and change to the incoming directory. Use the touch command to create a new file named “newfile.”

cd incoming/ touch newfile

Now go back to the first terminal window and stop inotifywatch by hitting CTRL+C.

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It’s never been easier to set up your own website—and you’ve never had more options. Here’s what you need to know to get that website up and running.

Decide What You Need a Website For

Before starting, you need to consider the type of website you want. There are plenty of great options for getting started with a website, but they all have different advantages. What you need for an online business card or resume is very different from what you need if you’re planning an online store or news publication.

There are three rough kinds of websites you’re probably considering building.

• A Simple Personal Website: If you just want a simple online presence that has links to your contact details and social media accounts, then you really don’t need a lot of website features. Many tools will be way more powerful than you need—and probably more expensive. A single page site that has your bio, a photo, and links will probably suffice.
• A Full, Traditional Website or Blog: The next level up is what you most likely think of as a traditional website: Multiple pages for different things or a regularly updated blog. Small businesses or people trying to build their online reputation run these kinds of websites.
• An Online Store: If you want to sell things through a website, you need a whole host of extra features that people running a simpler website don’t. This includes a shopping cart, the ability to manage stock, a way to process payments, and something to track orders and handle notifications. There are services that manage everything, but they’re more expensive and require more effort to set up.

Once you’ve assessed your needs and decided what you’re going to build, you can then move on to looking at how you’re actually going to run your website.

Decide How You’re Going to Run It

The days of hand coding your website from scratch are pretty much done—unless you need some incredible custom solution, which is way beyond what this article is about. There are easy to use services for whatever kind of website you need.

Carrd: Simple One Page Websites

For simple, one-page websites, Carrd is incredible. It’s free to get started, and the good looking, responsive themes cover pretty much any use case. I use Carrd whenever I need to set up a basic site quickly.

For $9/year, you can use a custom domain, add contact or signup forms, take payments using PayPal or Stripe, and remove the “Made with Carrd” branding. If you want something professional, fast, it’s the way to go.

Wix: Big Websites, No Coding

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What Is The Most Widely Released Graphic Adventure Video Game Of All Time?

1. King's Quest
2. Myst
3. Shadowgate
4. Maniac Mansion

Think you know the answer?

Josh Hendrickson

Philips Hue, LIFX, and Eufy Lumos color changing bulbs let you set the mood in your home, and Google Assistant empowers you to change them by voice. But you can also choose colors from Google Home Hub’s touchscreen. Here’s how.

We think the Google Home Hub is a great device. From one place, you can hear the news, play music, turn on and off your smart devices, and see pictures of friends and family. In a pinch, it makes a great cookbook and YouTube display too. Most of those capabilities revolve around voice commands, but you shouldn’t count out the display. Your photos look amazing on it, but it’s also a convenient touch control panel for controlling your smarthome gadgets when it’s noisy.

If you have color changing lights compatible with Google Home Hub, they’ll now give you color options when you select either the lights grouped into a room or the individual lights themselves. However, there is a catch—you have to have your lights associated with a room to see them in the dashboard at all.

I have more than two smart lights, but the rest aren’t in a room right now so I can’t see them.

Once you connect your smart lights and define what room they belong to, you’ll gain color options when you work with them in the dashboard. If you have a Google Home Hub in the same physical location as smart lights, you should associate them to the same room in the Google Assistant App. Then when you pull down on the Google Home Hub screen and tap on Rooms, the room the Hub is associated to will be selected automatically, saving a few taps.

So your first step is to group your smart devices into rooms in the Google Assistant app, which we’ve covered before. In the Google App tap on Add, then Set up Device. Next, choose “Have something already set up?” and search for the service you want to connect (Philips Hue, SmartThings, etc.). Once you’ve finished connecting the service and your devices are detected, add them to rooms when prompted.

To access your lights, swipe down from the top of your Google Home Hub screen. It helps to start just above the screen as you would with a smartphone to pull down the notification pane.

Tap “View Rooms” in the upper right-hand corner. You could tap “all lights,” but View Rooms will separate your lights by groups.

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What Is Responsible For That Distinct Post-Rainfall Smell?

1. Decomposing Leaves
2. Geosmin
3. Ozone
4. Methanol

Think you know the answer?

Africa Studio/Shutterstock

Vacuum cleaners and regular cleaning solutions work well, but what works even better when cleaning your upholstery is a dedicated upholstery cleaning machine that combines the two. We’ve looked at the best of every size out there.

Each of these upholstery cleaners is ideal for cleaning up food stains, marks from pets, or simply when the kids have decided to draw all over the couch instead of their coloring books. Consider them the best way to keep your furniture, carpet, and even car interiors looking as good as new.

Here’s a look at the best wet upholstery cleaners out there.

Best Handheld Cleaner: Bissell Spotlifter Powerbrush Handheld Deep Cleaner ($60) Bissell

The Bissell Spotlifter Powerbrush Handheld Deep Cleaner is one of the simplest cleaners out there. Simply plug it in, fill it with cleaning solution, and you’re good to go. You hold it like a regular handheld vacuum with continuous suction ensuring that your surfaces don’t get too wet and that any dirt or stains are sucked up quickly.

In addition to the continuous suction, there’s a manual spray trigger so you can opt to spray more solution onto the stain if need be. That’s great for digging up stubborn stains that don’t normally budge. A rotating brush further helps as it loosens up the dirt well before the suction does its thing.

It’s all suitably effortless, right down to how easy it is to remove the water and dirty water tanks after use. Just slot them off the back.

Buy on Amazon Best Upright Upholstery Cleaner: Hoover Power Scrub Deluxe Carpet Washer ($130) Hoover

Prefer to use upright vacuum cleaners? Then the Hoover Power Scrub Deluxe Carpet Washer is perfect for you. The powerful suction is combined with 360-degree brushes so it can easily contend with the toughest dirt on your furniture or carpets. Rather conveniently, it also has a special nozzle so it evenly cleans surfaces with equal amounts of suction, so you don’t have to worry about missing any key areas.

As well as that, it applies forced heated air to your carpets and surfaces so that drying time is improved. No squelchy carpets to walk around thanks to this feature.

Throw in automatic detergent mixing (and separate tanks for added ease), and it’s hard to pick fault in the Hoover Power Scrub Deluxe Carpet Washer. It’s perfect for an upright solution with a high quality hand-held feature built right in. For the price, it’s a ridiculously good value that will work on both your couch and your carpets.

Buy on Amazon Best Portable Upholstery Cleaner: BISSELL Little Green ProHeat Portable Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner ($125) Bissell

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Hubitat

The first step in building a smarthome is often choosing a hub, and there are many options. Hubitat is a unique cloud-independent hub. It’s incredibly powerful, capable, and complicated. But should you use Hubitat in your smarthome?

Hubitat Is a Powerful Hub for Your Smarthome Hubitat

One thing is still true; there are too many smarthome hubs from which to choose. And while there are hubs you should avoid altogether, Hubitat isn’t necessarily one of them: it’s complex, perhaps too complex for many people, but has a lot of powerful features.

Hubitat is a true smarthome hub designed to be the center of your automation. It connects to Z-wave and Zigbee, Alexa and Google Home, Lutron and LAN devices. What makes it different from most smarthome hubs is its emphasis on local control and incredibly advanced automations. It boasts a fairly large device integration list, and if you choose wisely, it should be able to control anything you add to your smarthome.

For example, with Hubitat, you could create a set of rules that would dim your lights from 100% to 30% over the period of a half-hour at sunset or 8 PM (whichever is later) and then bring the lights back up slowly at sunrise or 6 AM (whichever is later)—all without any cloud interaction. This will even work if your internet goes down. SmartThings and Wink can’t reach that level of complexity, especially while relying only on local control.

Most Hubs Are Cloud-Based, But Hubitat Is Local

Other major smarthome hubs, like Wink and SmartThings, are cloud-first devices with perhaps some local control added afterward. When you tap the button on your phone to turn on the living room light, a signal is sent from your phone to your router and over the internet to the Wink or SmartThings cloud servers. That command is processed and then sent back over the internet to your router and then to your hub. Finally, your hub sends the command to your light. Without some support for local control, this doesn’t work when your internet goes down.

Hubitat handles most of the work locally, which offers several benefits. Because your command doesn’t have to go over the internet and back, you’ll see your lights turn on and off more quickly compared to Wink or Smartthings. If your internet goes down, these locally controlled capabilities will continue to work. And, if privacy is your aim, you’ll have more of it since you aren’t communicating with a corporation’s cloud.

You can, of course, connect some devices that do require the cloud, like Amazon Echo or Google Home, to Hubitat. You’ll lose some speed and privacy when you use those devices and anything controlled by them.

One of the other benefits of Hubitat is cost. Once you buy the Hubitat hardware, you’re done. Hubitat doesn’t force you into ongoing monthly subscriptions to gain functionality; everything it offers is included, even software updates. Hubitat usually sells for $149.95, although right now Hubitat is offering the latest hardware for $99.95.

With Hubitat You Create Complex Automations Hubitat

Automations are the real smarthome superpower. While we love talking to our homes, Hubitat can make voice control unnecessary. Hubitat allows for advanced triggers and rules. For example, you can set up a rule for the following: Because you walked into the bedroom, and it’s after 9 pm, and it’s cold tonight, and the heating isn’t on, the lights should be activated and dimmed, and the electric blanket should be turned on. If you’re using individualized presence detectors, you could define that this only occurs if one specific person enters the room.

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Which Video Game Series’ Protagonist Derives His Name From Iconic Sci-Fi Writers?

1. HALO
2. Dead Space
3. Super Mario Bros.
4. Mass Effect

Think you know the answer?

Google Chrome lets you sync up your Google account to your browser across any device. When enabled, bookmarks, history, passwords, extensions, and themes—among many other settings—sync from your Google account, creating a seamless experience no matter where you are.

How to Turn Syncing On

To get started syncing to your Google account, fire up Chrome and click on the profile menu icon in the top right corner of your browser, then click “Turn on sync.”

You’ll be redirected to a Google Chrome sign-in screen, where you have to enter your Google email—or phone number associated with Google—and click “Next.”

RELATED: How to Manage Saved Passwords in Chrome

Enter your password and click “Next.”

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