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No matter what iPad you use, you’ll want a case to protect it. But if you’re feeling fancy, or you’re looking for a gift for an iPad user who would appreciate something more premium, you can’t beat leather.

We’ve selected the best genuine leather cases on the market. There’s no “PU” or “vegan” leather here: this is the real McCoy, genuine dead cow. That’s not for everyone, of course. Some might object to the material on environmental grounds or not want a case that needs a little care to keep looking great, so make sure your gift recipient is okay with leather before making your choice. But for most users, these are all great options for more elegant protection.

We’ve found the best general leather case option, the best for those who prefer a larger “folio” style or a more minimal integrated stand, the best sleeve design, and a novelty “book” case that makes a great gift if you’re looking for something unique. Note that we’re not breaking down our selections by iPad model: for each choice below, you should be able to find versions that will fit the standard iPad, the iPad Mini, and the various iPad Pro models.

For the general user, this design from French case maker Noreve is the best choice. It includes a full wrap-around shell that protects the tablet itself, a fold-over cover for the screen, and integrated organizer sleeves for extra trinkets like a screen cleaner cloth and notes. The back of the case has a small fold-out kickstand for hands-free viewing, though the Story Leather case below is probably a better choice if you frequently watch videos on your tablet. There are cutouts for the buttons and camera, and a stylus can be secured in the cover snap.

The Noreve case comes in a variety of leather qualities, from PU (read: fake) up to aged and patinated leather in a wide selection of colors. The sweet spot is Noreve’s “Illumination” patent leather, which comes in black, grey, or natural leather for a little over $100 on the standard 9.7-inch iPad. Some of the more expensive leathers and colors may take longer to ship; click the “In Stock” tab on Noreve’s online shop if you’re in a hurry.

Folio cases are a bit bulkier than a standard case, but they offer more protection and an appealing fold-out design. Pad and Quill’s Oxford, which goes for $110 on the standard iPad, is the one to beat. Its natural leather finish looks fantastic and feels even better, with premium stitching on all seams and a loop for your stylus.

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As more of our devices connect to each other, it’s always nice to know that different products from different companies work together. A Chromecast isn’t expensive, but being able to use your TV directly with Google Assistant is better.

Roku has long supported Google services like YouTube and Play Movies, but a recent update took it one step further: you can now use your Roku with Google Assistant voice commands. This feature is limited to the United States for now, and Netflix support isn’t available.

Your Roku will need to be running Roku OS 8.1 or newer to use Google Assistant. Start by turning on your Roku smart TV, streaming stick, or streaming box. Select “Settings” on the left.

Next, select “System” and then “System Update.”

Select “Check Now.”

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Chromebooks are inherently secure machines—they’re essentially impervious to viruses and similar threats found on other machines. The one primary weakness is a physical one, but Google is making moves to fix that, too.

There’s a malicious USB tool called a Rubber Ducky that emulates a keyboard and has the capability of injecting up to 1000 keystrokes per minute onto any machine which it’s inserted. As long as a would-be wrongdoer has physical access to your computer, all they need to do is insert the USB key and let it do the rest.

Since this is a physical weakness, that means Chromebooks are just as susceptible the Rubber Ducky attacks as other machines. But Google is working on a new feature for Chrome OS called USBGuard that will eliminate this threat by blocking access to USB ports on locked Chromebooks.

While this is still a work in progress, it appears that the feature won’t simply block access to USB ports across the board, but instead keep ports that are currently in use alive. So, if you’re transferring files from a USB drive and the ‘book goes to sleep, the transfer will continue. Similarly, users will be able to whitelist specific devices—like mice and keyboards, for example—so they’re always available regardless of the Chromebook’s lock state.

The USBGuard flag is already available on the Chrome OS Canary channel for those who live dangerously but should be available to more users on other channels in the coming weeks or months.

ChromeStory via Engadget

The iPhone XR does not have 3D Touch, instead relying on something called Haptic Touch. It offers much the same features, and as of right now, it’s an iPhone XR exclusive. Here’s how to set it up.

If you’re new to the iPhone XR, you may not realize that you have Haptic Touch, and you wouldn’t be the first, either. Haptic Touch is the iPhone XR’s replacement for 3D Touch, something most iPhone owners played with and then forgot about.

Haptic Touch acts as a right-click of sorts, allowing iPhone XR owners to activate menus and buttons that would normally be unavailable. Activating Haptic Touch on a notification, for example, presents additional options for notification management. Another example of where Haptic Touch can be helpful is in Control Center, where users can tap-and-hold on an icon to gain more granular control of a feature.

To alert users that Haptic Touch has been activated, iOS generates a small vibration to mimic a click.

The differences between the two are fairly minor, with the implementation of the two features being the main difference. While 3D Touch requires a firm press on the iPhone’s display, Haptic Touch instead has them press-and-hold until they feel a haptic response.

The differences continue into what you can do with Haptic Touch. For the most part, anything that works via 3D Touch is also possible with Haptic Touch, which two notable exceptions. First, you can’t access app-based shortcuts from the Home screen. Second, Haptic Touch does not support “peek & pop,” a feature that offers previews of anything from images to URLs. That’s the biggest miss of the two, but you pays your money, you takes your choice.

With all that said, if you’re an iPhone XR owner then you should at least take Haptic Touch for a spin.

Whether you’re new to Haptic Touch or are a 3D Touch veteran, open Settings to get the ball rolling and then tap “General.”

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Smart plugs are a convenient way to add smarts to just about any appliance, but if you want a more permanent and cleaner solution, in-wall smart outlets are the way to go. Here are the best ones that are worth purchasing.

Of course, in-wall smart outlets aren’t for everyone. Renters and even just those who aren’t comfortable messing with electrical wiring can benefit from smart plugs instead. However, if you’re able to, installing in-wall smart outlets is a great way to avoid bulky smart plugs and present a cleaner look. Here are the ones that we’d consider buying.

Once installed, the Smart Wi-Fi Outlet from Topgreener connects directly to your home’s Wi-Fi network and gives you one always-on receptacle, with the other controlled by your phone or voice.

The one smart receptacle also monitors your energy usage, so you can get a better idea of just how much electricity that space heater is pulling.

You can also do things like create scenes, set schedules and timers, take advantage of geofencing, and even enable an away mode that can turn lamps on and off randomly to simulate someone being home. It also works with both Alexa and Google Assistant.

Most importantly, the outlet is tamper resistant, UL listed, and NEC compliant.

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In photography, we talk a lot about “stops”: it’s the standard measure of exposure where an increase of one represents a doubling of the amount of light hitting the sensor or film. One thing that a lot of photographers don’t realize is that exposure actually has an absolute scale. Let me explain.

RELATED: What Is a “Stop” in Photography?

When you learn the basics of the exposure triangle—shutter speed, aperture, and ISO—it’s important to know that there are multiple combinations of aperture and shutter speed that give the same exposure, even if the photo might look different because of your chosen aperture or shutter speed. For example, if you were shooting a portrait outdoors and wanted a shallow depth of field, you might go with f/2.0 for 1/2000th of a second; a few moments later if you instead decided to shoot a landscape, you could use f/16 for 1/30th of a second. In both instances, the exact same amount of light hits the sensor, so the brightness and exposure of everything will be identical, but the photos will look totally different because of the different aperture and shutter speed.

But how do you know which combinations to use? Sure, you can go with trial and error, but there is actually a definitive scale that’s seldom taught. Both f/2.0 for 1/2000th of a second and f/16 for 1/30th of a second have an Exposure Value at ISO 100 (EV100) of 13. There are lots of other combinations that also have an EV100 of 13 like f/8 for 1/125th of a second or f/4 for 1/500th of a second.

And here’s where things get even neater: an EV100 of 13 actually corresponds to some real-world lighting conditions. A cloudy day or the sky just before sunrise generally has an EV100 of 13, so any combination of aperture and shutter speed that also has an EV100 of 13 will work perfectly.

Before going further, I want to step back and explain why EV is worth understanding; it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to break out EV tables to calculate what shutter speed to use while you’re on a shoot.

Instead, what an understanding of EV gives you is a deeper understanding of what your camera is doing and why. I’m a big believer that every photographer can benefit from knowing what’s going on with their camera when they press the shutter button. It’s this kind of knowledge that lets you pick the right light meter mode or autofocus settings without just guessing.

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When you power on a computer, it goes through a “boot up” process– a term that comes from the word “bootstrap.” Here’s what’s happening in the background—whether you’re using a Windows PC, Mac, or Linux system.

When you press the power button, the computer supplies power to its components—the motherboard, CPU, hard disks, solid state drives, graphics processors, and everything else in the computer.

The piece of hardware that supplies power is known as the “power supply.” Inside a typical desktop PC, it looks like a box at the corner of the case (the yellow thing in the picture above), and it’s where you connect the AC power cord.

Now that it has electricity, the CPU initializes itself and looks for a small program that is typically stored in a chip on the motherboard.

In the past, the PC loaded something called a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System.) On modern PCs, the CPU loads UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware instead. This is a modern replacement for the old-style BIOS. But, to make it extra confusing, some PC manufacturers still call their UEFI software “BIOS” anyway.

RELATED: What Is UEFI, and How Is It Different from BIOS?

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1. Fluoridated Water
2. Jeopardy
3. Iodized Salt
4. Computers in Schools

Think you know the answer?

5G is coming! It’s the future! It will speed up your phone, make your house connected, and finally bring you the fulfillment no other wireless standard could bring you. Or not.

Phone makers and carriers would have you believe 5G is really, truly, absolutely going to happen this year. But just like its predecessors, 5G mobile tech is going to have its growing pains, and early adopters will essentially be a huge group of product testers who are paying companies for the privilege of ironing out the kinks. If you’re hoping for a phone that’s sleek, gets long battery life, works wherever you go, and (perhaps most of all) is affordable, you might want to hold off on a purchase for at least a year or so.

This is all just a little bit of history repeating. The first selection of 3G phones had some of the same issues, as did LTE phones (or “4G” if you’re in the US and you had to de-tangle that thread) a few years later.

Why should you think twice about buying a first-gen 5G phone? Let’s break it down.

We’ve become addicted to phones that are thinner and sleeker as manufacturers have pushed for bigger screens, allowing batteries and other components to spread out without adding bulk. But speedy 5G wireless will require some bigger radios inside your phone, and more of them.

That’s a lot of extra space a 5G phone will need to make inside its glass and metal case. That being so, it’s likely that 5G phones will be limited to the larger “phablet” models (think the “Plus” iPhone size and bigger) just so they’ll have room to hold all those guts. If you prefer something smaller, or for that matter thinner, you’ll be out of luck.

If you want a practical example, check out some of the early hardware for 5G hotspots. These little gadgets don’t need much more than a radio cluster, a battery, and maybe a little LCD screen, but they’re still twice the size of their LTE predecessors.

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If you’ve had your laptop for a year or two, it may be full of dust. Dust clogs fans, vents, and heat sinks, preventing your PC from cooling down properly. You can remove a good amount of this dust, even if you can’t open your laptop.

Dust build-up can prevent a PC from cooling down properly, and that heat can even cause hardware damage. Your laptop’s fans may also run at full blast, draining your battery. Your laptop may even reduce its performance to stay cool.

Most laptops, especially newer ones, aren’t designed to be opened by their users. This presents a serious problem. On a desktop PC, you’d power down your PC, open the case, blow it out with a can of compressed air, and close the case. You could dust out a laptop in a similar way– if only there was a way to open it up and get inside.

Your laptop may have a bottom panel (or several bottom panels) you can unscrew to access the internals. Check your laptop’s manual, or look up a special “service manual” for your specific model of laptop online. Power down the laptop, remove the battery, and unscrew the panel to get at the laptop’s insides. If a service manual is available for your laptop, it will walk you through the process. Depending on your laptop, opening the panel may or may not void your warranty.

After it’s open, take the laptop somewhere you don’t mind getting dusty — like your garage, or even outside. Use a can of compressed air to blow out the internals of your laptop. Ensure you’re blowing the dust out of the laptop’s case, not just moving it around inside. For example, you could blow more toward your laptop’s vents so the dust would be blasted through the vents and out of the laptop. Be careful when blowing air at the fans in the laptop — if you make the fans spin too quickly, they could be damaged. Blow at the fans from many different angles, using short blasts of air.

We recommend compressed air — also known as canned air — for a reason. Don’t use a vacuum, and be extra careful if you opt to use an air compressor instead of a can of compressed air.

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Just like your car, your house, and even your body, your computer needs a good cleaning every once and a while to prevent dust build up and overheating.  Cleaning a PC is easy to do and only takes about 20 minutes, so today we’re going to cover how to effectively clean the inside of your desktop computer.

Editor’s Note: This article shows how to completely clean everything inside of the computer case. You don’t necessarily have to remove the RAM and video card if you don’t want to. We do recommend cleaning your computer on a regular basis.

Depending on your environment, you may need to clean your computer more or less often. Computer placement is one important variable. Keeping your computer on the floor allows for dust, hair, skin cells, and carpet particles to get inside easier. If you keep your computer above the floor—say, on your desk—particles are less prone to getting inside.

If you smoke near your computer, tar, ash, and other gunk can build up in your computer’s fans and on inside surfaces. Ridding your computer of these things every 6 months can increase your computer’s performance.

If you’re the owner of a pet that sheds, you might want to clean your computer more often. The inside of your computer is just as susceptible to fur clogging fans and other areas of your computer.

In short, if you keep your computer off the floor, don’t smoke, and don’t have shedding pets, you can probably get away with cleaning your computer once per year. If any of those things do pertain to you, you might want to clean your computer every 6, or even 3, months. And, as always, if your computer starts getting hotter than usual, open it up to check for any dust or hair buildup and then clean it.

Do not open your computer while it is running or with any cables attached to it. It is always safer to remove all peripherals such as USB cables, audio cables, video cables, and especially the power cable. Yes, keeping the power cable connected does ground the PC and it’s often okay to leave it connected while working inside the case. But, even the tiny trace of moisture from canned air can cause trouble if the components are getting power.

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1. Buddy Holly
2. Stephen Hawking
3. Jimmy Carter
4. Carl Sagan

Think you know the answer?

Mozilla just “experimented” with advertisement banners for Booking.com, a hotel reservation website, on Firefox’s New Tab page. Here’s how to disable all those banners so you never see any of these ads in the future.

A Mozilla spokesperson told VentureBeat that this “was not a paid placement or advertisement,” and was “an experiment to provide more value to Firefox users through offers provided by a partner.” Who does Mozilla think they’re fooling?

Anyway, if you don’t want to see these advertisement banners in the future, there’s a simple solution.

Click Menu > Options > Home, or just click the gear-shaped “Options” button at the top-right corner of FIrefox’s New Tab page.

Under Firefox Home Content, uncheck “Snippets.” This will disable all those message banners at the bottom of Firefox’s New Tab page, including ones hawking hotel booking websites.

While you’re at it, you may also want to uncheck Pocket’s Sponsored Stories, which are another type of advertisement that Mozilla places on your New Tab page.

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Apple started using the HEIC image format with iOS 11. It’s preferred over the incumbent JPG because of its smaller file sizes, and it’s also made its way to the Mac. HEIC can cause problems for some apps. Here’s how to easily convert HEIC files to JPG.

If you live your life on iOS, then the chances are pretty good that you never really know when an image is in the HEIC or JPG formats because, for the most part, it doesn’t matter. However, when you start sharing images or saving them to your Mac for future use, you might want them in a more common format. That tends to happen most on a Mac, so wouldn’t it be great if there was a quick and easy way to convert any number of HEIC format images into JPG? If you don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty with Automator, a quick and easy way you shall have.

Let’s get started.

Launch Automator on your Mac—it’s in your Applications folder, or you can use Spotlight to search for it—and then click “New Document.”

Next, from the list of templates, click “Quick Action,” followed by “Choose.”

Over on the left side of the screen, type “copy finder” into the search box and then drag “Copy Finder Items” to the right-hand side of the screen. Here, you can then select the folder to which you want to save the converted images.

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If you want a Wi-Fi cam to watch over your house while you’re away at work or on vacation, there are a ton of options. But if you want one that works well with your Google Home, there are some specific models to aim for.

In all honesty, there’s only one Wi-Fi cam that integrates flawlessly with the Google Home, and it’s the Nest Cam, which comes in indoor and outdoor versions. It works great mostly because Google owns Nests, so the integration is about as seamless as it gets.

The extra kicker is that the Nest Cam works with the Google Home Hub, as well as with a regular Google Home with a Chromecast device connected to a television. This integration allows you to pull up the video feed on your Home Hub or Chromecast using your voice.

So if you have a Google Home Hub, you can say something like, “Hey Google, show the family room camera.” Or if you go through a Chromecast you have to be a bit more specific with something like, “Hey Google, show the family room camera on the bedroom TV.”

Aside from the seamless Google Home integration, the Nest Cam is really easy to set up, and the app is really easy to use. So even if you don’t have a Google Home, the Nest Cam is just a really nice all-around Wi-Fi cam in general.

The one downside is that it’s kind of useless without the $5/month Nest Aware subscription (without the subscription you lose out on video recording and reviewing footage). But that’s not a bad price to pay at all, especially for how good the user interface is.

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As it turns out, the best emulator console you can buy may soon be the Xbox One. Libretro announced on Twitter recently that the emulator will be coming to Xbox One in “early 2019.”

While the logistics of exactly how this will work aren’t entirely clear yet, there are a few details available. First of all, Microsoft doesn’t allow game emulators in its Store, so the odds of RetroArch showing up in an official channel is pretty slim. Libretro noted that it could make the emulator available in the Store without any installed Cores, but that’s unlikely.

We’ve bit the bullet and will commit to releasing an Xbox One port of RetroArch for early 2019! Might require Developer Activation and might not be available on the Store but will be possible for anybody with an Xbone to obtain nonetheless! pic.twitter.com/hcZpiPBCPg

— libretro (@libretro) December 28, 2018

What’s more probable is that the app will be available for sideloading, which requires the Xbox to be in Developer Mode. That means users who are interested in turning their Xbone into an emulation station will need to cough up the $19 to active a developer account. Woo.

Once that’s done, however, it’s easy peasy from there. You can’t run officially licensed Xbox games or software while in developer mode, but there’s a simple “switch and restart” button for moving between Retail and Developer Modes.

All in all, this sounds pretty promising for Xbox users who are also interested in playing some old school titles without having to set up a dedicated emulation machine. We’ll let you know once this is officially available, along with the details on how to make it work for you.

via MSPowerUser

Google Docs lets you use voice typing to dictate using your computer’s microphone. It’s great for people who suffer from a repetitive strain injury, or for those who just don’t like typing. Here’s how to use Voice Typing in Google Docs.

Note: Voice Typing is only available for use in Google Docs and the speaker notes of Google Slides, and only if you’re using Google Chrome.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is to make sure you have a microphone installed and working.

Once your microphone is set up, fire up Chrome and head on over to Google Docs. Alternatively, from the address bar in Chrome, type docs.new to start a new document instantly.

To activate Voice typing, click Tools > Voice Typing. You can also press Ctrl+Shift+S in Windows or Command+Shift+S in macOS.

A window with a microphone icon will appear; click on it when you’re ready to dictate. You can move the tool out of the way by clicking and dragging the window wherever you want.

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Windows 10 lets you synchronize settings on all devices you sign into with your Microsoft Account. Some of these settings include themes, language preferences, and passwords. But what if you don’t want your old settings to transfer over? Here’s how to disable and remove all account Sync settings on Windows 10.

Sync Settings were first introduced with Windows 8 and are available for any Windows 10 device you sign into with your Microsoft account.

By default, when you enable Sync settings, Windows uploads various system settings and preferences to OneDrive. When you sign in to another device with the same account and on which you’ve also enabled sync settings, those settings all transfer over. It’s really handy if, for example, you like your desktop and laptop to look the same or you want to retain all your settings on a fresh install.

The following is a list of the settings that get synced to your Microsoft account:

• Theme – Desktop background, user tile, taskbar position, etc.
• Passwords – Windows credential manager, including Wi-Fi profiles
• Language Preferences – Spelling dictionary, system language settings
• Ease of Access – Narrator, on-screen keyboard, magnifier
• Other Windows Settings – A full list of Other Windows Settings

RELATED: Understanding the New Sync Settings in Windows 10

Disabling Sync settings in Windows 10 lets you limit what information Microsoft sends to the cloud and stores on their servers. Whether you want to disable a single setting or stop syncing altogether, this is how you can gain control of your settings once and for all.

Note: If you have multiple devices that all use Sync settings with your Microsoft account, you need to follow these steps for each device to disable and remove Sync settings completely.

Open up the Settings app by clicking the Start button and then the Settings cog. You can also press Win+I.

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Released only a few months ago, the Google Home Hub has won us over in a way a product hasn’t in a very, very long time. Here’s why we’re designating the Home Hub our Product of the Year.

At the start of 2018 Google announced it was branching out into “Smart Displays”, products that would rival the Amazon Echo Show and similar products. At first, the Google ecosystem was only populated by third-party products produced by companies like JBL and Lenovo—we reviewed the Lenovo Smart Display back in August of this year and thought it was pretty great.

And while the first smart displays were, in fact, pretty great, they couldn’t hold a candle to Google’s own product, the Home Hub, released in October of this year.

Between the lower price point ($150 at full retail, on sale for $99 with and without bonus products like a Google Home Mini pretty frequently) as well as a really polished user interface and hardware platform, the Home Hub has shaped up to be the best smart home value we’ve seen all year. At $150 it’s a great value, at $99 it’s a steal.

Most of us on the Review Geek staff pre-ordered one to play with the moment it was released, but without fail every single one of us has purchased more. I’ll admit I went from playing with just my pre-order unit to putting a Home Hub in every major area of my house—bedroom, kitchen, living room, etc.—within a month of getting the first one. Throw in some Google Home Minis and it’s safe to say that I’m totally (and happily) immersed in the Google smarthome ecosystem now.

Let’s take a look at some of the things we love about the Home Hub and why we’re not calling it just the best smart home product of the year, but the best product of the year, period.

Ambient Mode on the Google Home Hub truly has to be seen to be believed. One of the first things we fell in love with was how astoundingly good the ambient mode is.

When you’re not actively using the Home Hub you can set it to display photos—just like the Chromecast you can set it to display art, space photos, or other curated photos as well as your own Google Photos albums—or display the time in a dimmed mode that is more like e-ink and less like a bright tablet-like display.

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There’s nothing like a loud bang and a bright flash of light to really make an occasion feel special. New Year’s Eve, Halloween, and of course, the Fourth of July are all celebrated with fireworks. They’re a pretty tricky subject to photograph, though, so let’s break down what you need to know.

For all the flash and bang in real life, fireworks on their own are a pretty boring photo subject. Totally isolated, they look like something computer generated. Instead, the best firework photos have something else happening in the image. It might be people in the foreground or just the fireworks bursting over a city, but there’s something else going on.

RELATED: What Is Shutter Speed?

When the pyrotechnicians let off fireworks, they do it to get the best show. This means that fireworks are let off individually or in small bursts one after the other. It’s rare that the whole sky will be filled all at once. This looks great in real life, but in a photo, a single firework going off looks anticlimactic. Most firework photos are actually long exposure images that capture all the fireworks that went off over a 10 second, 20 second, or even longer period.

To capture a photo of fireworks, you’ve got two options: the first (and the bad one) is to hand-hold your camera and try and time a photo so you capture the fireworks as they go off. The second (and good solution) is to set your camera up on a tripod and use a long exposure time so that the fireworks burst at some point during it. This is the method I’ll be discussing.

For the best photos, get to the location of the firework display early, before the sun has fully gone down. Set up your tripod and frame the shot where you think the fireworks are going to be. You might need to adjust things later, but getting there early will let you get the best position and angle.

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