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Hand-me-down hardware is a rite of passage for even the most hardened of technology fans, so there may be times where a child receives an old iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Here’s how to create them their own Apple ID and add it to your family.

Apple IDs are vital for helping Apple and apps differentiate between users, and an Apple ID is necessary for making App Store purchases and signing up for iCloud. Both of those things are pretty integral to using an iOS device, so even if you’re handing an old device to a child, they’re going to need an Apple ID to really use it. Don’t leave your Apple ID signed in for them—that’s just asking for trouble.

Once you’ve successfully created a new Apple ID for your child, you can link it to your “family,” meaning you’ll have control over it and any App Store payments will be processed via your method of choice.

With that said, here are the steps you need to follow.

How to Create an Apple ID for a Child

To start, open the Settings app and then tap on your name at the top of the screen.

Next, tap “Family Sharing” to enter the screen where you can manage all of the accounts associated with a parent’s Apple ID.

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Makeup is a fun thing to shop for but what about if there was a way to receive some great beauty products every month as a kind of gift to yourself? These subscription boxes all do exactly that.

In each case, the subscription box offers a fun way of trying out new beauty products that you might not ordinarily consider. In some cases, you get sample size items while others you’re getting the full product. Regardless of the item size, it’s a neat way of trying something a little different on a regular basis.

Here’s our pick of the best makeup subscription boxes, and just why they might be the perfect subscription for you.

Best All-Rounder: Ipsy ($10 per month/$110 per year) Ipsy

The great thing about Ipsy is it works for pretty much everyone. To start out, it asks you a few key questions about your skin tone, hair color, as well as how comfortable you are using makeup, before finding out what brands you love and what kind of makeup you most frequently use. The options are super extensive so there’s little chance of getting something that’s just not for you.

The subscription service costs $10 per month or you can pay $110 upfront for the year and get a month free. For the price, you get 5 beauty products with a rough average value of $53. These can be anything from lipgloss to foundation or eyeliner. Typically, they’re well aligned to what you’ve requested, and you can always change up for future months if you want a focus on different kinds of beauty products. There’s a rewards scheme too for those that regularly buy other products through the site.

Subscribe to Ipsy Best For Lip Products: Lip Monthly ($12.95 per month/$137.40 per year) Lipmonthly

Mad about lip based products? Subscribe to Lip Monthly and you’ll never run out of options. For $12.95 per month or $137.40 per year, you get a selection of full-size lip products with a retail value of $40-$80 each month. It’s unusual for such services to offer full-size products so this is a big thing in favor of Lip Monthly.

You typically get a mixture of 4 to 5 lip glosses, lipsticks, lip balms, lip stains, and other products. These are generally a combination of big brands as well as niche and emerging brands that are well worth checking out. Much like Ipsy, there’s a rewards scheme too for its shop. Although, don’t expect to be able to heavily customize your options before subscribing. This is a more general service.

Subscribe to Lip Monthly Best For Natural Products: Love Goodly ($34.95 every two months/$48.95 every two months) Love Goodly

Love Goodly has an emphasis on providing cruelty-free vegan makeup and beauty products. All of its items are non-toxic as well as certified palm oil free so you can feel safe in the knowledge that you’re not damaging the environment while using its makeup.
For $34.95 every two months, you get 4-5 full-size products, as well as an occasional eco style accessory, wellness product or healthy snack. It’s those little bonuses that make it feel even more like a gift to yourself. The item value works out at about $99 each time. Alternatively, for $48.95 every two months, you can subscribe to the VIP service which bundles in an extra product or two and has a total value of about $174.

Either way, your skin will feel healthier with natural products, and you’ll know you’ve done your bit for the environment too.

Subscribe to Love Goodly Best For Emerging Brands: Glossybox ($21 per month/$210 per year) Glossybox

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Rumors come and go, but recently a whole slew of things about what Apple will be doing in 2019 hit the scene. While these may or may not be absolutely spot-on, they’re worth at least considering either way.

Now, before we get into the details, it’s worth emphasizing that these are rumors. That means they can change at any point or, to be completely honest, they may be wrong altogether. But they all seem highly probable, so we’re pretty confident sharing them.

Rumor #1: 2019 iPhones Will Keep the Lightning Port Cameron Summerson

With the newest iPad Pro models making the switch to USB-C, there’s been a lot of talk about whether or not Apple will make the switch on this year’s iPhone. According to a new leak (original source, in Japanese), it doesn’t seem like that will be the case.

Now, this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone—Apple generally delays changes likes this for longer than many users would like. At this point, it seems more likely than ever that we won’t see the switch to USB-C on iPhone until 2020.

It’s also rumored that the 2019 iPhones will ship with the same slow 5w charging brick that they have been for a few years now, even though modern iPhones support quick charging. Since this is easier to change than swapping the port out, it’ll be a huge bummer if true.

Rumor #2: A New iPad Mini is Coming, and It’s Just Like the Old One Apple

If you’ve been waiting for a new iPad Mini, your dreams may soon be coming to fruition. But if you were hoping for a totally redesigned model, well, then you may be disappointed.

Another leak today suggests that the iPad Mini 5 will roll out sometime in the first half of this year, but the overall footprint and design will remain largely the same. The innards will likely be updated with more modern specs, but again you should keep your expectations in check—the goal is to make the Mini more affordable, so don’t expect the hottest thing smoking in the Mini 5.

According to the source of the leak, Apple’s A10 chip is suggested to be powering the device, which is still a lot faster than the A8 in the current-gen Mini. Past that, the 5 should have a Lightning port, headphone jack, and Touch ID…just like the 4.

Rumor #3: AirPods 2 and AirPower are Coming This Year Apple

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Have you been fighting the urge to grab a new, modern laptop? Maybe one of those touch screen 2-in-1 devices? Well, now might be the time to go for an HP x360.

We’ve spent a lot of time raving about the Chromebook, and why wouldn’t we? Chromebooks are great alternatives to Windows or Apple laptops. They’re powerful, affordable, and reliable. The HP x360 is no exception. It’s a 14″ 2-in-1 touchscreen Chromebook with 8GB of RAM, 64GB of flash storage, and an Intel i3 Processor. That’s more power than many people need in a Windows laptop, and it works really well in a Chromebook.

Since the HP x360 is a 2-in-1 laptop, you can easily use it in place of a tablet for commutes, games, and Netflix. Or, you could grab a couple of accessories to turn the x360 into powerhouse workstation. And since Chromebooks work really well with all of Google’s products and platforms, you won’t have any trouble controlling your Chromecast or accessing your Google Docs.

Of course, even when you fall in love with a laptop, it can be hard to drop a couple hundred dollars on the fly. That is unless it’s heavily discounted. Right now, the HP x360 is only $450 on Best Buy — that’s a $150 discount. Not bad. But like anything good in this world, Best Buy’s hefty discount won’t last forever. Grab it now while you still can.

Buy at BestBuy

via Chrome Unboxed

At best, it’s irritating to get an email that contains unreadable characters. At worst, it can prevent you from reading the mail at all. Sometimes, changing the encoding in Outlook shows those missing characters and lets you read the message. Here’s how to do it.

What is Character Encoding?

If you’re not sure what “character encoding” is, we’ve got a comprehensive explanation for you. The less-comprehensive explanation is that a character is a glyph that appears on screen when you type something. So every letter in this article is a glyph that represents a letter—a, b, c, and so on. Behind the scenes, your computer represents these glyphs using a code that is interpreted by a program—like a web browser or a word processor—and then renders them on screen as a character.

RELATED: What Are Character Encodings Like ANSI and Unicode, and How Do They Differ?

So far, so simple, especially if you think there are only 26 characters in the alphabet, ten numbers, and some grammatical marks like ! or @.

However, there are also 26 upper case letters and far more grammatical marks that you might realize (your keyboard only shows a small subset of possible grammatical marks, even for English). And this only covers one language, English, which is in one alphabet, Latin (also known as the Roman alphabet). The Latin alphabet includes most Western European languages and has a large number of diacritic symbols which aren’t used in English. Diacritic symbols are things like accents, umlauts, cedillas, and other marks that change the pronunciation of a letter or word.

Then there are the many other alphabets, such as Cyrillic (most widely known for containing the Russian language), Greek, Kanji (Japanese), and Chinese, many of which include more than one language.

Now, you can now start to see the scale of characters that need to be encoded as glyphs. There are over 70,000 Chinese glyphs alone. A character encoding contains a number of code points, each of which can encode one character. ASCII, which you have probably heard of, was an early Latin alphabet encoding that had 128 code points, nothing near enough to cover all the possible characters people use.

W3’s recommended encoding for HTML is called UTF-8, which has 1,112,064 code points. This is enough to cover pretty much all of the characters in all of the languages in all of the alphabets (although not every single one), and is used in 93% of all websites. UTF-8 is also the encoding recommended by the Internet Mail Consortium.

Why Would I Bother Changing It?

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 Smartphone screens are getting bigger and brighter every year. It’s a nice change of pace, but how do you keep prying eyes away from your beautifully clear iPhone screen?

Whenever you’re using a phone or computer in public, you need to keep your privacy in mind. You might not be the kind of person that looks over shoulders to read text messages, but there are plenty of nosy people in the world, and some of them have malicious intents. That’s why it’s important to use a screen protector that has a built-in privacy filter.

Back in 2015, 3M and Ponemon teamed up to study “visual hacking.” This is a simple method of hacking where nefarious folks obtain usernames, passwords, and other sensitive information by watching people’s computer screens from across the room. It turns out that the low-tech method of “visual hacking” is surprisingly effective, and visual hackers can expect their beady eyes to obtain sensitive information with a 91% success rate.

Now, before you say “phones and laptops aren’t the same thing, I don’t need a privacy filter on my iPhone,” take a second to hear me out. You type everything on your phone using an on-screen keyboard. You use your phone in public every day. Phones are communication devices, and any type of private communication (especially email) carries sensitive information. If you’re using a work phone, the tiniest details on your screen could compromise a lot of peoples’ security.

Don’t worry too much about the creepy haiku’s and Netflix login information that you’ve texted to significant others in the middle of a busy Dunkin Donuts. That’s in the past, and we’re worried about the future. Privacy filters are a great way to protect your laptop screen from prying eyes, and phones are no different. There are plenty of high-quality screen protectors that have built-in privacy filters, you just have to find one that fits your iPhone. Lucky for you, we’ve taken the time to find the best privacy screen protectors for each (usable) iPhone on the market.

iPhone X and XS ($12)

If you don’t have a screen protector on your expensive iPhone X or XS, then you need to reflect on the decisions that you’ve made up to this point. You should probably grab at least one screen protector, if not more. And since the X has a high-contrast, easy to read OLED screen, you should probably make sure that your screen protector has a built-in privacy filter.

Luckily, Maxboost sells 3-packs of powerful tempered glass screen protectors for just $12. These screen protectors have built-in privacy filters that will keep any nosy nerds from stealing your credit card info when you decide to pay your bills at the last minute in a Denny’s lobby.

Buy on Amazon iPhone XR ($10)

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After Windows starts up, it waits about ten seconds before opening your startup programs. This “startup delay” lets your desktop and Windows services finish loading, making everything run a bit smoother. If you have apps you’d rather run immediately, you can do it with a simple Registry hack.

The ten-second delay after Windows starts but before it begins loading startup apps gives the operating system time to load into memory and perform any necessary system tasks before the apps start requesting resources. The Registry hack we’re talking about in this article reduces or disables the startup delay, meaning that it applies to all startup apps. There’s no way to apply this technique only to specific apps.

RELATED: How to Add Programs, Files, and Folders to System Startup in Windows

Note: Eliminating the startup delay works best on solid-state drives since they load things much quicker. While you can certainly give it a try if you have a traditional hard drive, you might not see much increase in how fast your startup apps load.

How to Disable the Windows 10 Startup Delay

To disable the Windows 10 startup delay, you just need to make a few edits in the Windows Registry.

Standard Warning: Registry Editor is a powerful tool and misusing it can render your system unstable or even inoperable. This is a pretty simple hack, and as long as you stick to the instructions, you shouldn’t have any problems. That said, if you’ve never worked with it before, consider reading about how to use the Registry Editor before you get started. And definitely back up the Registry (and your computer!) before making changes.

Open the Registry Editor by hitting Start and typing “regedit.” Press Enter to open the Registry Editor and then permit it to make changes to your PC.

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Have you been waiting for the perfect opportunity to buy an Amazon smart device? Well, the wait is over. Woot is selling Amazon products at a ridiculous discount.

Online retailers will usually sell refurbished devices at a moderate discount. Maybe $20 or $30, nothing too crazy. But right now, Woot is selling refurbished Amazon devices for more than 50 percent off, just in time for Valentine’s day.

Here are Woot’s discounted Amazon products:

• Echo Connect Black – $15 $35
• Amazon Echo (1st Generation) – $25 $130
• Echo Look – $30 $100

An Amazon Echo for $25 is a complete steal, even if it is the older model. And an Echo Look for the price of a restaurant dinner ain’t too shabby either. Remember how it used to cost $200?

A lot of people haven’t heard of the Echo Connect, but it can be really helpful if you own a couple of Amazon Echos. Essentially, Echo Connect pairs your landline phone connection with all of your Alexa-compatible devices. $15 to gussy up your old landline? That’s a pretty good deal.

As with any good deal, this one won’t last forever. In fact, it’s going to end at midnight. Whether you’re trying to make your home a bit smarter or impress a Valentine, this may be your last chance to do it for cheap.

Buy on Woot

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If you’ve just bought a new TV, you might be wondering why everything you watch feels eerily sped up and smooth, like you’re watching a live broadcast all the time. You’re not imagining things: Your TV might be suffering from Motion Smoothing.

What is Motion Smoothing, and How Does it Work?

Every TV manufacturer calls their specific tech by a different name, for marketing reasons of course. Action Smoothing, TruMotion, Motionflow—these are all names for the same function: making your TV’s picture feel smoother. And that’s motion smoothing. It’s also known as the “soap opera effect” because low-budget soap operas used to have cheap video cameras that produced a higher frame rate, smoother-looking video.

Most TV shows, movies, and broadcasts are filmed at 24 or 30 frames per second (fps, also called “hertz” or “Hz”), which is fast enough for the eye to perceive them as smooth video and not a choppy slideshow. However, the standard most TVs and monitors are capable of is 60 Hz and some more expensive displays clock in at 120 Hz and even 240 Hz.

But, movies and TV shows are still 30fps, which presents a problem: what’s the point of 60hz displays if the content you watch only updates at half of that? The refresh rate of film isn’t changing anytime soon, so this is where “Motion Smoothing” comes in. Motion smoothing tries to fix this issue by taking a guess at the 30 frames missing from each second, usually by comparing a before and after shot and attempting to find the middle ground between the two of them.

RELATED: Why Does My New HDTV’s Picture Look Sped Up and “Smooth”?

Why Is It Such a Problem?

Most people have trouble with motion smoothing. After all, we’ve spent years training our brains to enjoy movies and TV shows filmed at 24 or 30fps, and our brains have come to think of that as how a movie or TV show should look.

TV manufacturers, on the other hand, are just trying to advertise bigger numbers to consumers. 240 Hz must be better than 120 Hz and much better than 60 Hz, right? Well, sometimes it is, yes—especially when the content is designed for it.

But most consumers don’t enjoy the higher frame rates on most of the content they watch. Viewing content filmed at 24 or 30fps looks especially weird on TVs that run at 120 Hz and above. The insanely smooth motion makes the video almost seem real, which breaks the immersion of cinema completely. Honestly, it often feels more like you’re watching a behind-the-scenes documentary about the movie than the movie itself.

For some things, motion smoothing makes sense. Live action sports and video games, for example, have fast-moving content that could use a bit more clarity. Unfortunately, two other problems associated with motion smoothing break these two use cases as well.

• For sports, things sometimes move so fast that the smoothing algorithm doesn’t know what to do, and ends up producing a strange, often blurry image instead of a clear “in between” frame. This defect, which results in incorrect or glitch pictures, is called artifacting.
• For video games, the extra input lag required to add motion smoothing completely ruins being able to play the game effectively. The controls feel sluggish and unresponsive, which is why most TVs offer a “Game Mode” that disable motion smoothing and other advanced picture effects.

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Craig Lloyd

Most Wi-Fi cameras require a power outlet, which puts a real damper on where you can place them. Battery-powered Wi-Fi cameras, while not as numerous as their wired counterparts, offer much more flexible placement. Here are the best models available.

If you’re not interested in tearing up your walls to run wire (or paying an electrician to do it), wireless battery-powered security cameras are pretty appealing. There’s no video feed cable, no power outlet required, and if you’re willing to charge the batteries a few times a year then installation is as simple as screwing the mounting point into the wall or even just setting the camera on a shelf in your home.

Arlo Ultra ($399) Arlo

If money really isn’t an issue and you simply just want the best battery-powered Wi-Fi camera on the market, you can’t go with the Arlo Ultra.

The Ultra can record in 4K HDR, which is quite impressive for a battery-powered camera. It also can do color night vision thanks to the built-in spotlight, making it easier to recognize objects (unlike the typical black and white night vision that most other cameras that makes it more difficult to distinguish between things on the video feed). It has two-way talk capabilities and a really wide 180-degree field of view so you see much more of your yard or home.

It’s also weather resistant, so you can place outside if you’d rather keep tabs on the outside of your house. Plus, it has strong magnetic mounts to make it easy to mount the cameras but just as easy to dismount it whenever you need to recharge it.

The downside is that a proprietary hub is required in order to operate the Ultra cam, but once you have the hub installed, you can add as many cameras as you want with little hassle.

Buy on Amazon Ring Stick Up Cam ($179) Ring

Ring doesn’t only just make video doorbells. They also make standalone Wi-Fi cameras as well, and the Stick Up Cam comes in a battery-powered version that works great anywhere around your house.

While it doesn’t do 4K video like the Arlo Ultra, it can at least churn out 1080p video and comes with all the features you’d want, including two-way talk and night vision, as well as motion alerts and plenty of different ways to mount it.

If you only need one or two Wi-Fi cams in your house and need them battery powered, this is definitely the way to go.

Buy on Amazon Budget Option: Arlo Wire-Free ($249 for 2) Arlo

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The “screen door effect” often occurs when using modern virtual reality headsets. It looks like you’re viewing the world through a mesh screen, and is a result of the black, empty spaces between pixels when seen up close.

What Does the Screen Door Effect Look Like? thd_fon/Shutterstock.com

Screen doors have mesh screens, and it looks like you’re viewing the world through a grid when you look through them. That’s exactly what the screen door effect can look like in a virtual reality headset.

The screen door effect doesn’t always look the same. The visual effect depends on the specific headset you’re wearing and the content you’re viewing. Different people’s eyes and brains may perceive the screen door effect differently, too. And, even if two people can see the same visual effect, it may annoy some people more than others.

Heck, one person on Reddit even claims the screen door effect is less noticeable when using a VR headset while intoxicated—perhaps due to slightly blurrier than normal vision.

RELATED: How Good is VR in 2018? Is It Worth Buying?

What Causes the Screen Door Effect? CobraCZ/Shutterstock.com

The screen door effect (SDE) is a visual artifact caused by the display inside the headset. Modern flat-panel displays use pixels, which are tiny individual elements laid out on the panel. There’s a bit of space between each pixel. That space isn’t lit and is black, and it results in the black visual grid you sometimes see. That’s the screen door effect.

This effect isn’t new to VR headsets, and it can occur for other types of displays. It’s worse on VR headsets than other modern displays because our eyes are so close and are looking at the panel through lenses that magnify it. In other words, you’re looking at the display really close, so you can see the individual pixels and the spaces between them.

However, if you get your face right up against another display—assuming the display is low resolution enough—you may be able to see the individual pixels and the grid between them on that display, too.

How Can the Screen Door Effect Be Fixed? Samsung

This problem is less noticeable on higher-resolution displays, which have higher pixels per square inch (PPI.) This means the pixels are packed more tightly together and there’s less space between them. As the space between pixels shrinks, the screen door effect becomes less noticeable and can practically be eliminated.

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Cameron Summerson

If you’re running a Google Pixel handset, your phone is safe from a security hole that could let a PNG file completely wreck the system. If you’re using nearly any other Android handset, then your phone is vulnerable. This is a problem.

Google recently released the February security update for Pixel devices, which closes a hole that would allow malicious PNG files to “execute arbitrary code within the context of a privileged process.” In simpler terms, the code can run at a high level and steal your info—all you need to do is open the file. That’s it.

That means any PNG that comes to you—be it in an email, a messaging client, or even over MMS—could potentially hijack the system and steal valuable data. That is, on any phone that isn’t a Pixel, because they’re protected now. Samsung, LG, OnePlus, and most other manufacturers’ handsets are still susceptible to this bug. We have to start holding manufacturers to a higher standard when it comes to security updates. Period.

I currently have four Android phones within arm’s reach: Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 1, Samsung Galaxy S9, and OnePlus 6T. The two Pixels are patched and protected with the February update, but the S9 and 6T are only on the December security patches. That means any newer vulnerabilities—like this PNG one, for example—are unpatched on both of these handsets. Considering that Samsung Galaxy devices are among the most popular phones on the planet, this is troubling.

Cameron Summerson

But it’s not just an issue because of the current problem. This is a dynamic problem that is a constant concern—or at least it should be. As long as there are new vulnerabilities, delayed security updates will always be an issue. So, to put that in simpler terms: this will always be an issue because vulnerabilities are guaranteed.

While Android “fragmentation” has long been an issue (since the platform was introduced, essentially) when it comes to full OS updates, this should not apply to security updates. These are not “new features are cool, and I want them” updates, these are crucial data-protecting updates. Regardless of whether they’re small or not, this isn’t something that should be overlooked by any consumer. Ever.

RELATED: Fragmentation Isn’t Android’s Fault, It’s the Manufacturers’

Currently, manufacturers are doing a terrible job of protecting their users, full stop. While not getting full OS updates (or even point releases) is annoying at best, not getting security updates is unacceptable. It sends a message that can’t be ignored: it says that your phone manufacturer doesn’t care about your data. Your info isn’t important enough for them to protect.

Security updates aren’t huge like full OS updates or even point releases. They’re released monthly by Google, so they’re much smaller and easier to bake into the system—even for third-party manufacturers. Again, there’s no real excuse not to make this a priority.

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Apple’s Original Logo Featured Which Famous Inventor?

1. Sir Isaac Newton
2. Thomas Edison
3. Nikola Tesla
4. Alexander Graham Bell

Think you know the answer?

Tired of racing people to the overhead compartments? Maybe it’s time to start shoving that carry-on luggage under the seat.

Underseat bags, while not as big as overhead bags, are incredible pieces of luggage. They’re compact, lightweight, and the best of them can totally replace your overhead bag. An underseat bag can take the hassle out of a short flight, but it can also smooth the edges of a long flight.

Not to mention, replacing (or supplementing) your overhead bag with an underseat bag can provide you with in-flight access to the snacks, games, and books that would usually be thumping around above somebody’s head. You won’t have to scramble together what you need while boarding, and you won’t have to beg an attendant to let you dig around in the overhead compartment mid-flight.

A lot of underseat bags have found their way to store shelves and online retailers, but none of them are created equal. Some of them are just big, pocket-less nylon tote bags. What’s the point in buying a piece of luggage that isn’t durable or organized?

That’s why we’ve taken the time to find the best underseat bags in a variety of shapes and sizes. All of these bags are durable, organized, and suited to a modern flyer’s needs.

Samsonite Underseater With USB Port ($90) Samsonite

Samsonite Underseater is a strange, exciting little bag. It’s a bit roomier than most underseat bags, and tows the line between a backpack and a serious piece of luggage. The Underseater has four organized pockets, and the main pocket is big enough to hold a 15″ laptop. It has a set of wheels and a retractable handle, but it can still slide onto the handle of a larger bag. The Underseater also has a USB port that can be linked with a portable battery, for easy in-flight phone charging.

Really, anyone can get some use out of the Underseater. It’s a great primary bag for short flights, as it can hold a lot of clothes and electronics. But it’s also a good piece of supplemental luggage for longer flights, because it has so many organized pockets for your laptop, your portable battery, snacks, books, and games.

Buy on Amazon Samsonite Advena Travel Bag ($55) Samsonite

If you’re looking for a deep and durable underseat bag, then you should check out the Samsonite Advena. It’s a duffel-styled bag with two large pockets, a shoulder strap, and a sleeve that can slide over the handles of a larger bag.

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Smarthome gadgets are convenient, but what happens when the power goes out? Can you unlock an electric smart lock? Will all your smart lights come on at 3 a.m. when the power returns? And what about your garage door.

Power Outages Aren’t Much Worse For Smart Homes

Power outages happen, and they’re annoying to everyone. Every home depends on electricity to power climate control, lighting, internet, appliances, and so many other modern conveniences. A power outage is a problem in a smarthome, sure—but it’s a problem in every home.

Let’s be honest: Losing power in a smarthome isn’t different from losing it in any other home these days. Most smart devices will stop functioning just like most “dumb” devices, but there are some things to keep in mind—especially for smart locks and some smart lights.

Smart Locks Are Battery Powered, and May Have A Backup

Just because you’ve lost power doesn’t mean a smart lock has completely stopped working. Smart locks are battery powered, so the locking mechanism can keep working even when the rest of your home loses power. However, any remote capabilities that rely on the internet or a connected hub will not work. And that includes battery notifications, so if the power outage is expected to last you might want to replace your batteries as a precaution.

Batteries dying won’t be a concern if your smart lock includes a keyhole. In that case, make sure to have your key, but if your smart lock features only a keypad or Bluetooth connection then go ahead and replace the batteries or at the very least test their charge. Some smart locks have terminals to receive a charge from a 9V battery as well; if that applies to you, then it may be worthwhile to store one in your car in the glovebox. For example, both the Schlage Z-Wave connect and the Kwikset Kevo have keyholes, while the Yale Assure Lock features a 9-volt battery backup option.

Smart Lights Might Wake You Up

While your power is out, your smart lights are the same as any other light—off. They won’t do much of anything until you get power back, which is no surprise. The bigger question is what happens when the power comes back on. Many smart lights will stay off until you explicitly turn them back on. But some lights, like Philips Hue bulbs, can act differently. Depending on the current setting, these bulbs may turn on as soon as your power returns.

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Which Computer Engineer Is Best Known For Giving The Mother Of All Demos?

1. Bill Gates
2. Tim Berners-Lee
3. Douglas Engelbart
4. Steve Jobs

Think you know the answer?

Boszyy Artist/Shutterstock

A good quality car shampoo is key for starting off your car cleaning experience just right. The best car shampoo will clean off all the dirt without leaving a mark or stain in sight. We’ve looked at some of the best options out there for you.

In all cases, we’ve focused on gentle formulations that are pH neutral and guaranteed to not damage your car’s clearcoat or underlying paint. We’ve also looked at some options that work great without water, or that don’t require you to wax separately afterwards. After all, not everyone wants to spend hours detailing their car, right?

Here’s our favorite car shampoos for every situation.

Best Overall: Adam’s Car Wash Shampoo ($45) Adam’s Polishes

Adam’s Car Wash Shampoo is a perfect one-stop destination for washing your car. It’s pH neutral, guarantees to never scratch, cause swirls, or leave water spots, and it’s easy to use. Its formulation is safe on all vehicle surfaces including paint, rubber, vinyl, glass, and plastics.

You can use it with a bucket of water to create a rich, thick head of foam or you can opt to pair it with a foam gun or cannon for a snow like consistency. It smells nice too which is always a welcome bonus. Simply add a few ounces of the gel to your water and you’re set up to wash your car without any hassle. It’s sure to become a favorite of yours.

Buy on Amazon Best Wash And Conditioner: Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Wash ($30) Meguiar’s

Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Wash is a dependable all in one solution if you want something that both cleans and conditions your car. Because not everyone wants to do that in separate steps. Meguiar’s formulation does a good job of foaming away tough dirt and road grime, while also adding ultra-rich conditioners to your paintwork. Somehow, it does all that without stripping away wax protection.

Like the Adam’s solution, you can slip it into a bucket or foam gun so it’s pretty easy to apply, although generally, you’ll get better results from this via the bucket and scrub method than foam gunning it. Bear that in mind if you want minimal effort when washing. Still, it’ll last you a while thanks to its high concentration levels of about 1 ounce to 1 gallon of water.

Buy on Amazon Best Concentrate: Chemical Guys Citrus Wash and Gloss ($45) Chemical Guys

Chemical Guys is always a great brand for car washing products so we couldn’t skip mentioning its Citrus Wash and Gloss. It smells as nice as it sounds with a biodegradable formula that out performs any shampoo that uses more aggressive chemicals. Its fast penetrating lubricating foam lifts and holds soil, so you won’t have to put much effort into your wash.

It also goes a long way with 1 cap of the shampoo combining with 5 gallons of water. It works equally as well via the bucket method or using a foam gun or cannon. Just make sure to shake it up before use as otherwise the agents can separate in transit.

Buy on Amazon Best For Waterless Wash: Adam’s Waterless Car Wash ($54) Adam’s Polishes

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A time-lapse is the opposite of slow-mo: instead of slowing down fast-moving activities they speed up slow ones. They’re perfect for showing the movement of clouds, crowds, traffic, and the like. You can even use them to show slow moving things like blooming flowers.

The great thing about time-lapses is that they’re very easy for photographers to shoot. Each frame is a single still image. Let’s have a look at the basics of shooting one yourself.

Before You Start

While it’s possible to shoot a time-lapse with your iPhone, for this article we’re going to look at using DSLRs or mirrorless cameras. They give you the most control.

RELATED: How to Select and Use a Tripod

As well as your camera, you need a tripod to keep everything locked in the same position. You also need an intervalometer so you can take photos at the same interval; some cameras have one built in, but if yours doesn’t, any decent remote shutter release will work.

RELATED: How to Remotely Control Your Camera

The final thing you have to do before starting is to work out how many images you have to shoot. There are calculators that can help, but I find it’s worth doing the math yourself.

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Cel-Shading Was First Used In Which Video Game?

1. Robotech: Battlecry
2. Jet Set Radio
3. Mega Man X7
4. Cel Damage

Think you know the answer?

dourleak/Shutterstock

There are a lot of reasons for wanting to boot from an external drive. If you’d like to keep files synced between a desktop and laptop, expand your storage, or have a bootable backup copy of your system, there’s a hidden feature in Disk Utility that makes it easy.

Generally, booting from an external drive will be slower, even with new Thunderbolt and USB-C drives. Those are still much slower than the solid state drives (SSDs) found in most new Macs. So while this isn’t recommended for daily use, it’s still possible.

Straight from Disk Utility, No Third Party Apps Required

Fire up Disk Utility from Spotlight (Command+Space) or the Utilities folder in your applications. You’ll be greeted with a list of all of your volumes, including your internal hard drive (probably called OS X or Macintosh HD) and your external hard drive.

Here’s where we get to that hidden feature we mentioned.

The “Restore” button in Disk Utility will copy the files from a backup to your main drive. It’s intended to be used from Recovery mode to restore your hard drive after a failure.

But, if you choose your external drive as the restore target, you can flip that action around and copy files from your main drive to the backup. Select your external drive in the sidebar, click “Restore” in the menu, and then select your main drive as the “Restore From” option. You can also choose an ISO image, but that doesn’t have much use here.

Click “Restore,” and Disk Utility will start the copying process. This can take fairly long, depending on the speed of your external drive and its connection to your Mac, so it’s best to have a fast hard drive with Thunderbolt, USB-C, or USB 3.0 connections.

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