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Applying shadows to shapes, images, text, or other objects is a great way to add flair to your presentation. However, too many visual effects may draw your audience away from the central message of the slideshow. We’ll show you how to create the perfect balance by adding (or removing) shadows on objects in PowerPoint.

Open your PowerPoint presentation and go to the slide that contains the objects with which you’ll be working. Click to select the image.

On the Picture Tools “Format” tab, click the “Picture Effects” button. (If you’re applying a shadow to text, that button will be named “Text Effects” instead.)

On the drop-down menu, select the “Shadows” submenu.

This submenu contains a large variety of shadow effects. Hovering over each option gives you a live preview, so play around with them to see which one you like best. In this example, we’ll use the lower-left perspective option.

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If you do a lot of adventuring or hiking and you hardly ever have access to an outlet to charge up your phone, you may very well benefit from iClever’s solar charger, a combination solar charger and battery pack.

Even while traveling most of us can get away with just a battery pack to charge up our phones when it needs a top off. Then, once we arrive at our destination (or whenever we have access to an outlet), we can charge up the battery pack and repeat the process.

But for those who brave the great outdoors and won’t even see an outlet for a while, the sun can pick up the slack. That’s where products like the iClever (and other solar chargers) come into play.

iClever’s solar charger and battery pack is an iPad Mini-sized device that comes with two solar panels that can fold up and be stowed away like a notebook in a backpack. It’s certainly much larger than your typical battery pack, but it was never really meant to slide into a pocket anyway—you need decent size solar panels to get a decent charge going, after all.

When closed, there’s a small flap that folds over and clasps everything together with magnets, so there’s definitely a certain premium feel to it. What’s cooler is that the flap is also where the charging ports are—just peel off the rubber cover on the end and you’ll see a microUSB port for charging up the battery pack the old-fashioned way, as well as a full-size USB-A port that can push out up to 2.4A of juice to your gadgets. We’d love to see USB-C and support for fast charging, though that might be a bit much to ask, at this point, from a device that only retails for $49.

There’s also an LED grid for a visual representation of the battery level, as well as a small power button to turn on and off the charger, although it turns on and off automatically when up plug and unplug your devices.

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If you think the only correct version of your password is the exact capitalization and letter/symbol sequence you use, you may be in a shock. Facebook will accept slight variations of your password, for your convenience. And it’s perfectly safe.

Facebook and other sites like it have a problem. They’d like you to use long and complicated passwords, but those are hard to type. You should be using a password manager to take care of that for you, but most people don’t. And because of those two factors, it’s common to mistype your password.

At that point what should Facebook do?

Should they deny you entry just because your password was slightly off, and frustrate you with a second attempt? Or should they recognize that the provided password was likely correct but with a typo and smooth your journey to cat gifs and baby pictures by ignoring the mistake?

As Alec Muffet, a former software engineer for the security infrastructure team at Facebook Engineering in London explains, Facebook chose the latter. If your password is very close to correct, they may count it as accurate. The rules for this are straightforward. Facebook will accept an incorrect password if it meets any of these conditions:

• You have caps lock turned on, and the capitalizations are reversed.
• You enter an extra character at the beginning or end of a password
• The first character of the password should be lowercase, but you typed it capitalized

As you can see, these variations are all centered around the basic concept of slightly missing your password when typing. In some cases, this may be an issue of autocorrect, like the first letter of a word being capitalized. If your mistyped password meets these specific rules, you won’t know there was a problem—you’ll just find yourself logged in.

For example, let’s say your password is “letMeIn.” Facebook will also accept “LETmEiN” (because that’s a straight-up caps lock reversal) and “LetMeIn” (because that’s incorrect capital for the first letter). It will also accept variations like “1letMeIn” and “letMeIn2” because those are correct except for an additional character at the beginning or end. However, it won’t accept “LETMEIN”, “letmein”, or “12LetMeIn” at all.

At first blush, Facebook’s password lenience sounds insecure. But in this case, the truth is more complicated. While it’s easy to think of old hacker crime dramas that showed quick brute force guessing at a password in mere minutes, hacking doesn’t work that way at all. Brute forcing unknown passwords does exist, but it’s very different than TV implies. As xkcd famously demonstrates, as the length of a password increases, the time to crack it also increases exponentially. Adding complexity helps, but not as much as you might think.

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I spent days using Cortana instead of Alexa or Google Assistant and the experience left me feeling as rough around the edges as Cortana is. Unfortunately, Microsoft has fallen so far behind that the only reasonable solution is to give up.

Recently, Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, has said he no longer sees Cortana as a competitor to Alexa or Google Assistant. According to MSPoweruser, he stated:

“You should be able to use it on Google Assistant, you should be able to use it on Alexa, just like how you use our apps on Android and iOS so that’s at least how we want to think about where it’ll go.”

But, is Cortana so far behind? Is it time to head in a new direction and give up on Cortana being your dedicated digital household assistant? I spent a few days trying to determine just that, and what I found is: Yes, this is the right decision to make.

When I started with this experiment, I immediately ran into an issue. I have Alexa devices and Google devices scattered through my home. But I don’t have Cortana devices so conveniently placed. I own a Surface Pro 3, a Windows 10 PC, and I put Cortana on my phone. But my PC doesn’t have a microphone, my Surface spends much of its time turned off these days, and my phone doesn’t have a decent enough microphone for quick voice commands.

So I acquired a Harmon Kardon Invoke for my office (where I spend a lot of my time) and used my phone in other locations in the house. It’s not a perfect one-to-one scenario, but good enough. Unfortunately, there is no Google Home Mini or Echo dot equivalent, just the Invoke. So cheaply placing Cortana speakers around the house is out of the question. The price of the Invoke has dropped to $50, which is very low for a such a great sounding speaker, but you can get Echo Dots and Google Minis for less. If you keep an eye out, it’s not uncommon to see them for as little as $30.

My primary use for my Google and Alexa devices are smart home controls, music, timers, and routines that automate things. When it came to Smart Home integration, I thought I was doing well at first. Cortana has Wink, Smartthings, and Philips Hue integration. I’m currently using a Wink hub for many of my smart home devices and Philips light bulbs, and controlling those devices worked without issue. The experience with most of my smart home devices was on par with Alexa or Google Assistant.

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1. Algerian
2. Comic Sans
3. Courier
4. Papyrus

Think you know the answer?

Justin Singer/FEMA

You’re probably familiar with the AMBER and Government Alerts that sometimes appear on your iPhone and they can be hugely beneficial. We wouldn’t recommend it, but you can disable them. Here, we’re going to tell you how to do it.

Disabling both AMBER and general Government Alerts is a reasonably easy thing to do if you know where to look, although even with both options disabled you will continue to receive alerts of life-threatening events (which is probably a good thing!).

For the uninitiated, AMBER alerts—or America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response—are alerts sent out to make the population aware that a child is missing, and the system can be instrumental in returning children to their loved ones. Standard Government Alerts are for more general threats or messages from the country’s leaders and can be equally important. Messages about extreme weather conditions are also delivered via this system. “Presidential alerts” are special, and you can’t disable them.

If disabling one or both of these types of alerts is something you want to do, here’s how to go about doing that. However, AMBER alerts are not available in all countries, while some countries present Government Alerts from being disabled. Follow the instructions below to see which options are available to you in your particular locales.

RELATED: What Is the “Presidential Alert” Popup on Your Phone Today?

To start, open the Settings app on your iPhone and tap “Notifications.”

Next, scroll to the very bottom of the list of apps. You will notice two entries: one for AMBER Alerts and another for Emergency Alerts. Both are enabled by default on all iPhones.

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Are you feeling burnt by Netflix’s price hike? It may be time to run into Hulu’s loving, affordable embrace.

This morning, Hulu announced that its basic, ad-supported subscription service will drop from $7.99 a month to $5.99 a month on February 26th. Thankfully, the number of ads won’t increase for basic Hulu subscribers, they’re getting a straightforward discount. This $2 drop is clearly a response to Netflix’s $2 price increase, a move which has given Netflix a lot of bad press this month.

But you shouldn’t wave the flag of Hulu just yet. It also announced a price increase for the Hulu with Live TV service. As of February 26th, Hulu with Live TV will cost $44.99 a month, a $5 increase from its previous price. Hulu cites its Live TV partnership with “The CW, Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and ABC News,” as the reason behind the hike.

Keep in mind that these changes don’t affect subscribers with student discounts, the $11.99 ad-free subscriptions, or the $12.99 Spotify/Hulu bundle.

It’s no secret that Hulu made the most of 2018. It expanded the library with classic shows from the ’90s, topped 25 million subscribers, and launched a Live TV service. Disney is set to become the majority shareholder of Hulu, and Hulu’s partnership with Spotify has successfully brought in a bunch of new subscribers.

Some people suspect that Hulu’s new relationship with Disney is the reason behind this price drop. Hulu is now backed by one of the most powerful media companies in the world, and it can handle the risk of aggressive marketing and offering subscriptions at a loss. Disney wants to solidify its place in the world of streaming services, which means that it has to take on Netflix. It’s even planning to launch its own Disney+ service sometime this year.

The price changes to basic Hulu and Hulu with Live TV won’t start until February 26th. Existing subscribers will start to see a different price to their bill after that date.

Source: Hulu

Since their release over two years ago, AirPods have become one of Apple’s most popular accessories—but it’s not really because of the audio quality. The selling point is how amazingly convenient they are to use.

Too often headphones are either praised or chastised strictly based on how good or bad they sound. Audio quality is absolutely a huge factor when deciding on which pair of cans to buy, but this leads to inadvertently overlooking other features in pursuit of sound quality above all else. The AirPods are a perfect example—the audio quality isn’t anything to write home about (they definitely sounded better than what I was expecting, though), but every other feature the AirPods have justifies the high price tag.

Thanks to Apple’s proprietary W1 chip inside newer Apple devices, it’s super easy to pair AirPods with your iPhone.

All you do it is open up the lid of the AirPods case and they’ll instantly show up on your iPhone screen asking if you want to pair them to your phone—that’s it. No need to go into the Bluetooth menu in settings and put them in pairing mode. It literally takes five seconds to pair AirPods the first time you set them up.

Because of how small and rounded the AirPods case is, they’re really easy to slide into a pocket and take out whenever you need them. This is such a minor detail, but it’s pretty crucial when you’re on the go constantly and want to take your AirPods with you.

Pretty much every other pair of Bluetooth headphones that I’ve owned have been super cumbersome whenever I try to put them in my pocket and take them out. Usually, the cable connecting the two buds gets tangled up or snagged on something or I need fiddle with some other aspect of the headphones before using them.

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Twitter recently introduced a button that lets users sort Tweets in a way that makes sense (read: chronologically), then quickly switch back to the default “popularity” sorting. The thing is, why can’t all networks do this?

Victoria Song, writing for Gizmodo, made the case today that Instagram should “steal Twitter’s sparkle button” and I couldn’t agree more.

While Instagram may not buck parent company Facebook’s love of algorithmic feeds, it should do exactly that (and Facebook should do it too!)—calm down the masses and give us a goddamn sparkle button. Stop trying to force side-scrolling feeds and other junk features. Just lovingly gank Twitter’s sparkle button. After all, it worked with ripping off Snapchat’s stories.

Currently, Instagram pushes stuff from accounts you interact with most to the top of your feed. While that’s cool because it’s probably content you’ll dig, what about all the cool stuff you’re missing out on because it’s buried at the “bottom” if your feed? You don’t get to interact with that stuff because you never see it, which in my mind puts your account in some sort of perpetual cycle of seeing the same crap all the time and missing out on new stuff. Naturally, the solution there is to offer a quick-sorting button to switch between the two types of feeds. There’s so much value in that.

But really, why stop with just Instagram? Facebook should do it. And any other network that decides I should see what’s “popular” instead of looking at things in the order they’re presented. I mean, you can append “?sk=h_chr” to the end of the URL in the browser (like this) to get Facebook in chronological order, but that’s only helpful on the web. A little button to toggle between the two types of feeds in the mobile apps would be where it’s at.

RELATED: Why The Chronological Facebook Feed is Never Coming Back

Truthfully, that’s where the biggest issue lies now that Twitter is giving users what they want—with Instagram and Facebook. But all networks should do this, even niche ones. Like Strava! I’d like to see when my friends are active in order; why show me rides from three days ago instead of the ones from this morning? It’s stupid.

Anyway, the point is that Twitter’s “sparkle” button is a great idea, offering users a fast and efficient way to sort content the way they want to see it. Seems like something that would make a lot of sense on all networks—not just Twitter.

Some people say phones are largely boring now, which may be somewhat true. But to keep things interesting, you have companies like Meizu trying new and, erm, innovative things. Like the new Zero phone, which has no ports or buttons.

Building a phone with no ports or buttons was surely a challenge, but if we’re honest, probably no more challenging than using said phone. Hell, it doesn’t even have a speaker grille. It’s just a screen and a body. To offer the feel and function of a power button and volume rocker, Meizu packed the Zero with a “virtual side button.” It’s like Google’s Squeeze for Assistant stuff, but for buttons. It provides haptic feedback so you know you pressed something.

Naturally, it charges wirelessly. It comes with Bluetooth 5.0 for all your audio needs. The fingerprint reader is under the display. The screen works as a speaker—a 5.99-inch speaker, somehow. This thing is weird. There’s not even a SIM slot!

So, what happens when you inevitably have to perform a hard reset? There’s a pinhole, like the good ol’ days where you had to stuff a paperclip into a thing to restart it. It’s like that. For data transfers, it uses USB wireless connectivity, which Meizu claims is as fast as USB 3.0. I’m skeptical.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor does the heavy lifting, though other important hardware details are non-existent right now. The Zero is IP68 dust and water resistant, which makes perfect sense for a phone with essentially no openings.

Neither price nor availability for the Zero is available, but I’d guess it will be “a lot” and “in China,” respectively. We’ll see.

via Android Police

Man, that took a while, but two years after it first became available, YouTube TV is finally available for essentially everyone. That’s cool because YouTube TV is pretty good (and simple!) as far as streaming services go.

You’d be forgiven for not being super familiar with YouTube TV, especially since it was limited to certain locations until now. But overall it’s a solid streaming service—for $40 a month, you get over 60 channels, YouTube Originals, and the option to add extras like Showtime, Starz, Shudder, and more.

Aside from a decent selection of channels, every YouTube TV subscription allows for six accounts per household, which means everyone under your roof can get their own set of favorite channels and recordings. Speaking of recordings, YouTube TV offers unlimited DVR space, which is pretty unheard of for any streaming service.

And while it was once only available on a handful of devices, you can now access the service from pretty much any of the major players—Android TV, Apple TV, Roku, iOS, Android, Xbox, and a slew of smart TVs. Per the norm, the PS4 is probably the biggest name missing.

So if you’re looking to replace your existing cable subscription with a streaming platform, give YouTube TV a look. It’s pretty hard to beat for $40 a month, especially if it offers all the channels you want. You can learn more about the service here.

via TechCrunch

Whether you like it or not, folding phones are coming. Samsung showed off its folding design late last year, but now Chinese company Xiaomi is teasing its folding phone, and it’s, well, it’s interesting as hell.

When most of us think about “folding phones,” we simply imagine a tablet that folds in half and becomes a phone. That’s cool and all, but what Xiaomi is proposing is…cooler. Maybe more functional? Perhaps even more innovative. Whatever it is, I think I like it. Here’s a look at it in action:

Check out this special video from #Xiaomi President and Co-founder Bin Lin, showing off a very special phone prototype…

Mechanical keyboards have been the big trend in computer inputs the last few years. They feel great, but they’re kind of like the monster trucks of the desk: big, loud, heavy, and unapologetic. Niche manufacturer Hexgears aims to change that.

The X-1, ostensibly designed after the Bell X-1 hypersonic plane, uses Kailh Choc low-profile switches, a smart key layout, and some sleek engineering to make a full-sized mechanical keyboard that’s about the same size as the more stylish designs that ape Apple’s Magic Keyboard.

While it includes Bluetooth for hassle-free wireless, it also has a lagless USB-C connection with N-key rollover for the gamers among its target audience. An aluminum casing, full RGB lighting, and a choice of two colors and three switches rounds out an impressive feature set, helping to justify the premium $120 price.

The X-1’s laptop-style chiclet keys won’t please everyone, and its battery life drops sharply if you turn on the lights. But those are the only major complaints I can lodge against this thing. It’s beautiful, it travels better than any other mechanical keyboard I’ve tried, its switches are shorter than I’m used to but that’s a more than acceptable compromise for its size and weight. If you’ve been put off by the chunky looks and stodgy insistence on wired designs of most mechanical keyboards, this one might just make you a believer.

Tastes in keyboard aesthetics are quite broad. If you find two users who actually care about how their keyboard looks (which is admittedly a small subset), you’re unlikely to find a common opinion between them. Even so, I’ve yet to hear anything except praise for the look of the Hexgears X-1.

I ordered mine in black, to match the rest of my desk, but it also comes in grey aluminum with white keys if your taste leans towards Cupertino. The whole thing has around the same footprint as a tenkeyless keyboard, but it’s only three-quarters of an inch tall at its thickest point. I usually forego keyboard legs, but I was happy to use the small fold-out legs in the X-1 just to get a more familiar raised profile.

The flat chicklet keys use white printing that allows the RGB lights to come through as bright as any “gamer” keyboard, and the thin aluminum housing feels elegant and sharp. The aluminum wraps around the curved corners and sizes, only surrendering to plastic on the bottom face of the board, I suspect for the sake of weight and Bluetooth wireless signal.

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Arlo’s highly-rated and versatile Pro camera system is particularly affordable today with the 2-camera starter kit at an all-time historical low. Now’s the time to snatch up a great camera system for nearly 50% off the original price.

While the most current version of the Arlo platform is the Arlo Pro 2 (which builds on the Pro cameras by upping the resolution from 720p to 1080p, widening the field of view, and integrating some software features like enhanced activity zones), the Arlo Pro cameras are still fantastic cameras. They’re among the highest rated Wi-Fi security cameras on Amazon (4 stars based off 13,500+ reviews) for good reason.

The Pro cameras integrate with both Alexa and Google-based smarthomes so you can easily see your live video stream on your Echo Show or Google Home Hub, for example. The Arlo system also includes a wide variety of features not found on many other Wi-Fi security cameras including a siren in the base station, local USB recording (and free 7-day cloud recording too). The cameras are weather-resistant and can be used indoors or out. Finally, the real selling point of the system: rechargeable batteries with six-month battery life so you can place cameras anywhere without drilling holes in your walls or running wire.

The 2-camera starter kit is down to only $224 from the original price of $420 which puts it at nearly $200 off the introduction price and nearly $60 off even the low prices we saw on Black Friday in 2018.

It’s highly unlikely that someone will hack into your Nest cameras, but it has happened. And if you don’t enable two-factor authentication on your Nest account, it could eventually happen to you.

One family’s Nest camera was recently hacked and used to belt out a fake emergency message about an impending missile strike from North Korea using the Nest Cam’s built-in speaker—a bizarre way of using the hacked camera for sure.

Google says this hack job was merely accomplished by using a compromised password that was also used on another website that was breached. Turning on two-factor authentication would have prevented the Nest camera from getting hacked.

RELATED: What Is Two-Factor Authentication, and Why Do I Need It?

There was also another instance of a Nest Cam (being used as a baby monitor) becoming compromised where the perp started shouting expletives through the camera’s speaker. What’s wrong with these people? It’s just weird.

Long story short, Wi-Fi cams can get hacked into. With that said, if you don’t have two-factor authentication enabled for your Nest account, here’s how to do it.

Go to home.nest.com in a web browser (you can’t do it from the app, unfortunately) and log in to your account.

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Setting the rounding precision forces Excel to always round numeric values to a specified number of digits following the decimal, saving you from having to use the ROUND function on each formula. Here’s how it works.

Note that setting Excel’s rounding precision can save time, but be certain you want to round all values before you enable this feature. When Excel is set to round numbers, it deletes the extra data following the precision point you set, permanently affecting the accuracy of the numbers in your workbook. This means, for example, that if a value like “12.7851698” is displayed with two digits after the decimal point, then Excel will permanently delete the “51698” and leave only the “12.76” remaining.

This feature also works on a per-workbook basis, meaning you can enable it for some workbooks and not others. You must enable it for an entire workbook, though; you can’t enable it only for specific sheets within a workbook.

Navigate to the “File” menu.

Select the “Options” menu.

In the Excel Options window that appears, click the “Advanced” category on the left.

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A file with the .msix extension is a Windows application installer. Microsoft recently introduced MSIX as an alternative to EXE, MSI, and even AppX packages. Exercise caution and ensure you trust an MSIX file’s source before running it.

Currently, Windows has three common installer formats—MSI, EXE, and AppX. Each has different strengths and weaknesses.

MSI installers are best for simple, possibly unattended, installations. They use a basic install graphical user interface (GUI) that installs or uninstalls the program with no extras or options. At the very core, this installer is a compressed set of installer files containing all necessary data for the software. The install process won’t detect if the software already exists, or if any components are missing. It may overwrite any files in the install path. This simplicity means a silent, all-defaults install is a breeze for administrators to accomplish.

EXE installers are more versatile than MSI installers, but with the added capability comes complication. This installer can include options for languages, add-ons, detecting previous installations, and more. EXE installers allow for custom install paths and choosing which components to install. Developers can add their own branding to the GUI and incorporate language-specific terms of service or point to a webpage for a welcome message. But this, in turn, makes a silent unattended install much more difficult, and thus less useful in an enterprise situation.

AppX installers are used for Universal Windows Apps and share some of the benefits of MSI installers. They are simple, straight forward installers with few choices given to the end user. Additionally, they allow for an easier upgrade path from older versions of software to newer versions, and they allow for a cleaner uninstall. AppX installers also rely on container technology, so they are isolated from the rest of the operating system for security. Unfortunately, a program written for an MSI or EXE installer had to be rewritten or converted, perhaps with the help of tools, for the AppX package. And AppX packages can only be used with Windows 10, so older versions of Windows are out of luck.

An MSIX file has the benefits of AppX while being similar to an MSI file. It is a straight forward installer that system administrators can even script for automatic, “unattended” installation. Additionally, it relies on container technology, which allows for smooth uninstalls and upgrades.

From a user perspective, an MSIX installs like an MSI file, but behind the scenes, it installs like an AppX file. Additionally, MSIX distribution outside the Microsoft Store is possible. And with this new process, it’s easier to bring older programs in and repackage them for MSIX.

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One year ago we reviewed the newly released Logitech MX Ergo and absolutely loved it. Today we’re taking a look back at the wireless trackball and how our opinion of it (and the product itself) has held up over a year of use.

The Ergo’s claim to fame, above all else, was that it represented an update to Logitech’s long-running line of trackball mice (a line that stretches well back into the 1990s). Fans of their trackballs hadn’t had much to sink their teeth into for ages (the wireless predecessor to the Ergo was the M570 from 2010) and they—myself included—were pretty excited about the Ergo’s release.

RELATED: Logitech MX Ergo Review: A Worthy Heir to Logitech’s Lengthy Trackball Mouse Lineage

If you revisit our full review here, from January of 2018, you’ll see we were very pleased with the MX Ergo on multiple fronts. It boasts a very pleasant-in-the-hand ergonomic shape that echoes (and improves upon) past incarnations of the TrackMan-style trackball mice. You can use Logitech’s Unifying Reciever dongle or Bluetooth to connect to your computer, or you can use both to connect to two different computers (and switch between them with the click of a button on the mouse). The build quality is fantastic.

In fact, after extended use, we can safely say that even the very minor complaints we had about the mouse aren’t complaints we’d lodge anymore. We pointed out that the mouse was a bit heavy (to be expected from a full-size trackball mouse with a metal base plate and a large battery) but after a year of tossing it in a small laptop bag and taking it all over the country, we can say that it’s a fair trade-off. Sure it’s not as light as a tiny travel mouse but it’s also way more comfortable (especially for dedicated trackball users who abhor using tiny travel mice on the road).

The second point very-minor complaint we lodged was that it would require more charging than M750 (which was legendary lasting 1-2 years, or longer, off a single AA battery). We’re happy to report that the MX Ergo has pretty great battery life. Maybe not two years of daily use without charging, pretty great, but pretty great none the less. In fact, the Ergo has seen use week-after-week as our goto laptop mouse without a single charge.

We couldn’t tell you exactly how that’s worked out in terms of minutes of use over the last year, but it’s sure been nice not worrying about charging it—and when we do have to charge it, it’s just a few hours of recharging for another 6-12 months of use.

On top of all that, despite taking no special care with the mouse—we meant to buy a travel case for it, but never did—and tossing it into our laptop bag with a bunch of laptop-bag-type-junk, it still looks brand new despite the benign neglect.

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Exposure bracketing is a technique where, instead of taking a single photo, you take three (or more) that are all exposed slightly differently; normally one is correctly exposed, one slightly underexposed, and one slightly overexposed. It’s in quite a few situations, so let’s look at how it works.

Getting exposure right can be a complex subject. There are lots of things you have to balance: how your camera is metering the scene, your camera’s dynamic range, and of course, what settings you’re using. You might also be trying to deliberately overexpose your photos a little to get more data in the RAW file without going too far and blowing your highlights.

With all these moving pieces exposure bracketing is a solid technique for making sure that you get a good exposure while you’re on location—there are some things you can’t fix in post. By also taking one photo that is a stop or two underexposed and another that is a stop or two overexposed, even if you misjudge your exposure, you still have the bracketed shots. Landscape photographers sometimes refer to bracketed shots as “safety shots” for this reason.

RELATED: Exposure Values Give You a Better Understanding of How Your Camera Works

If you shoot bracketed shots, there are also a few more advantages: you can always create an HDR image, you can blend different parts of the image yourself if you need to, and, if something is moving through the scene, you can replace it with original image data instead of relying on Photoshop’s tools.

Now, exposure bracketing only works well in certain situations. It’s really a landscape or architecture photography technique. If you’re photographing people, pets, or anything else that moves a lot, you won’t be able to shoot bracketed exposures; instead, you’ll just be taking different photographs with different exposure values.

There are two ways to take bracketed exposures: manually and automatically.

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Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock

When you buy a new appliance, you’re making an investment that should last a while, but that may not be true for smart appliances. Manufacturers aren’t obligated to keep your machine up to date, which could turn your investment sour.

Today, there are still plenty of homes furnished with fridges, stoves, and washing machines from the ’80s. These appliances may not look as good as they used to, and they probably inflate electric bills, but they’re reliable and easily serviceable. Some of these appliances may survive for another ten or twenty years. So it’s fair to assume that a brand new appliance will last for decades, right?

Well, it depends on what you buy. Let’s say that you’ve invested in a smart appliance, like the Samsung Family Hub smart fridge or an LG smart A/C unit. You could’ve bought a cheaper appliance, maybe even a refurbished appliance from the 2000s. But you (justifiably) consider the functions of a smart appliance to be a major selling-point and worthwhile investment.

Well, there’s a chance that your expensive smart appliance will be dumb in less than a decade.

Remember landlines? They tended to last for a while, and you didn’t need to replace them unless you wanted a voicemail receiver or a cordless phone. But cell phones are a different story. According to a Gallup poll, 44% of Americans replace their cellphone every two years, and most cellphones become obsolete after about five or six years.

People don’t complain too much about having to buy a new phone every few years, mostly because they don’t have much choice. Smartphones regularly require new hardware and software to keep up with the times, and old computers tend to slow down. Not to mention, people are becoming increasingly concerned about privacy, and older phones can be more vulnerable to hacking attempts.

When you consider the fact that smart appliances are built like smartphones and tablets, and that they’re meant to work in tandem with smartphones and tablets, it raises a question. Will smart appliances need to be replaced every five or six years? Obviously, your smart fridge isn’t going to stop producing cold air just because its smart features are out of date. But if you dropped thousands of dollars on a smart fridge that can’t stay smart, then that’s a serious problem.

The first wave of smart appliances came to market less than a decade ago, yet companies are already showing that they’re not interested in putting out firmware updates. And a lot of these appliances are hitting the market with rushed, underdeveloped software, so people are already finding themselves with smart appliances that aren’t so smart.

LG sold their brand of smart appliances (ranges, A/C units, washing machines, and so on) with the promise that they’d work with Google Home, but early adopters in the US claimed that their devices couldn’t connect to Google Home. They also complained that LG wouldn’t offer any support for the problem.

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