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And The 2018 Smartphone Of The Year Is…

How-To Geek - Thu, 12/27/2018 - 15:00

Every year, smartphones come and go. Some stand out in the crowd, while others fall to the wayside. Regardless, every year one phone generally stands above the rest. This year is no different.

Picking an objective “best” smartphone of the year isn’t always an easy task, especially given the current state of smartphones. It’s no longer about major metrics like performance or battery life—most phones are just really good now. Really good. And in that respect, it’s hard to go wrong with any of the flagship phones.

But when you spend enough time using a variety of phones, as we do here at Review Geek, then you start to understand that it’s about refinements and a premium experience. The amount of smartphone you get for the money plays an important role in which device can be called the best one of the year. It’s a tight race, but despite that, this year’s pick was a surprisingly easy choice.

Our pick for smartphone of the year is…

The iPhone XR

When it comes down to it, selecting our pick for smartphone of the year was pretty simple. The XR is an incredibly premium device that offers the newest fit and finish that Apple has to offer. As we said in our review, it’s 98 percent of the XS experience at 75 percent of the cost. It’s not only one of the best smartphones of the year, but it offers an unprecedented value where the new iPhone are concerned.

That last bit is a key point, because while it’s still not what we would call “cheap,” it’s the most affordable new iPhone on the market while still offering a remarkably similar experience to the company’s pricier models. While many people consider the XS and XS Max Apple’s “flagship” smartphones, that’s not totally true—the XR is the flagship of this family; the XS and Max are the luxury models. Simply put, this is the smartphone for everyone.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

What Is Focus Stacking?

How-To Geek - Thu, 12/27/2018 - 15:00

A big part of photography is coming up with creative ways to overcome the limits of the laws of physics. One of these techniques is focus stacking.

Even wide angle lenses at narrow apertures—a combination which gives you the broadest possible depth of field—can’t have both the extreme foreground and extreme background in sharp focus. You can come close, but if, say, there’s a cool shell right in front of you, and something else of interest in the distance, one or both of them is going to be a little bit blurry. Just look at this photo.

While it’s not bad, the shell is less sharp than I’d like while the castle on the island is in focus, or as much in focus as is possible with my setup.

Here’s a photo where I focused on the shell instead.

While it looks much the same at web resolution when you zoom in on the high res file, you can see the shell is in sharper focus—look at the rings around the shell as well as the small pebbles nearby to see it—while the castle on the island isn’t.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

Do You Really Need to Regularly Reinstall Windows?

How-To Geek - Thu, 12/27/2018 - 13:40

For many people, Windows seems to slow down over time. Quite a few people fix this by regularly reinstalling Windows. But do you need to reinstall Windows regularly? And, if so, how often do you need to reinstall it?

Reinstalling Windows is inconvenient. You have to back up all your data, go through the install process, reinstall all your favorite programs, and restore your data. All these activities suck up valuable time.

Why Windows Slows Down Over Time

The main reason people reinstall Windows is that it slows down over time. But why do Windows systems slow down over time?

  • Startup Programs: Examine a Windows system that’s slowed down and you’ll likely to find many additional startup programs have been installed, lengthening the boot process, cluttering the system tray with useless icons, and consuming CPU, memory, and other system resources in the background. Worse yet, some computers may come with a considerable amount of unnecessary startup programs out of the box thanks to manufacturer-installed bloatware.
  • Explorer Plug-ins, Services, and More: Applications that add shortcuts to Windows Explorer’s context menu can make right-clicking on files take much longer if they’re poorly programmed. Other programs may install themselves as a system service, so they’re running in the background even though you can’t see them. Even if they aren’t in the system tray, useless programs can slow down your PC.
  • Heavy Security Suites: Security suites like Norton are often very heavy, consuming a lot of resources to perform all their functions. You don’t need a full security suite—just an antivirus program.
  • PC Cleaning Tools: PC cleaning tools are generally scams. Paradoxically, they can make your computer even slower if they add themselves as a startup program and run in the background. The scammiest PC cleaning programs may also install additional spyware and other junk. You can use something like CCleaner instead, but there are even better options.
  • Other Junk: Poorly written applications may clutter your system with useless DLL files and fill your registry with unnecessary entries. The worst applications may not clean up properly after themselves, leaving this stuff on your system even after you uninstall them.
  • Browser Toolbars: Legitimate browser extensions can slow down your browser enough, but junk add-ons like the terrible Ask.com toolbar can slow things down even more.

In other words, the leading cause of a Windows system slowing down over time is installing junk software.

How To Prevent Windows From Slowing Down Over Time

To keep your Windows system running like new, you need to take proper care of it.

  • Install only software you’ll use. Choose well-written, lightweight programs that respect your system instead of slowing it down.
  • Pay attention when installing software and avoid installing browser toolbars, spyware, and other garbage software that can slow down your computer.
  • Regularly uninstall software you don’t use from the Control Panel. Even useful software may run in the background and slow things down.
  • Occasionally use tools like Disk Cleanup to remove the temporary files wasting space on your hard drive. You don’t have to reinstall Windows to get rid of these.
  • Take proper care of your web browser, too. Use a minimal selection of browser extensions. If you don’t use a browser extension, uninstall it — it’s just taking up system resources and slowing your browser down for no good reason.
  • Carefully select lightweight, minimal security programs. All you need to install on Windows now is an antivirus app and possibly an anti-exploit app. With Windows 10, the built-in Windows Defender plus an anti-exploit app like Malwarebytes make a great combination.
  • Use a startup manager tool like the one built into Windows 10 to prune useless programs from your startup process.

Tips for Testing Software

If you want to test software without letting it mess up your system, consider installing it in a virtual machine or using a sandboxing tool like Sandboxie to isolate it from the rest of your system. The software won’t be able to mess with your primary operating system—just your virtual machine or sandbox environment.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

Geek Trivia: The USB in “USB Cable” Stands For What?

How-To Geek - Thu, 12/27/2018 - 09:02

The USB in “USB Cable” Stands For What?
  1. Utility Service Bind
  2. Uninterrupted Service Bus
  3. Uniform Sync Bank
  4. Universal Serial Bus

Think you know the answer?

Categories: IT General, Technology

How to Set Up and Use Siri on an iPhone

How-To Geek - Wed, 12/26/2018 - 22:00

Siri has a bad reputation among many, but it’s perfectly usable for most tasks, and if you’re knee-deep in the Apple ecosystem it doesn’t matter how much better a competing digital assistant is because everything ties into Siri. That means that you’re going to need to use it, and that’s pretty easy to do when you know how. Let’s jump in.

How to Enable Siri on an iPhone

Just as is so often the case, this process starts in the Settings app. Launch the app and scroll down before tapping “Siri & Search.”

Beneath the “Ask Siri” heading you will see three toggles. We’d suggest turning them all on:

  • Listen for “Hey Siri”: This lets you use the phrase “Hey Siri” to get the digital assistant’s attention.
  • Press Side Button for Siri: This lets you press and hold the side button on iPhone X models or the home button on older models to activate Siri.
  • Allow Siri when Locked: This lets you invoke Siri via either the side/home button or voice while your iPhone is locked.

How to Change Siri’s Voice on an iPhone

You may not like the way Siri sounds by default, but there are multiple voices to choose from depending on the language selected. To start, open the Settings app and tap “Siri & Search.”

Tap “Siri Voice.”

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Categories: IT General, Technology

The Best Mice For Your Gaming PC

How-To Geek - Wed, 12/26/2018 - 18:00

A gaming PC needs a gaming mouse. OK, OK, it’s true: you can play PC games with a crusty old mouse if you want. But they’re certainly more fun with a shiny new “gaming-grade mouse.”

If you’re just getting into PC gaming, or you’re an old hand looking for a competitive advantage, these are the best options on the market as of late 2018. Logitech’s flexible and surprisingly affordable G502 Hero gets our pick for most people, and we’ve also chosen Logitech’s reliable designs for wireless and budget gamers. But if you’re looking for something specifically for shooters or MOBAs, or you need an ambidextrous mouse for a left-hander, we’ve got you covered for these picks as well.

The Best All-Around Gaming Mouse: Logitech G502 Hero ($75)

The G502 Hero will meet all of the needs for most gamers. It uses a segmented body design that’s comfortable, while still giving you access to many more buttons than either a standard PC mouse or a more streamlined “shooter” design. (The extra bindable buttons come in handy for games like Overwatch, where you have multiple weapons, abilities, and ultimates to juggle.) Two rocker buttons and two DPI adjustment buttons, plus the usual two thumb buttons and a “sniper” button for temporary sensitivity adjustments, give a wide array of options without making them overwhelming or hard to distinguish like an MMO mouse.

On top of that you have an frankly insanely powerful 16,000 DPI sensor, adjustable weights in the bottom housing to change feel of the mouse in your hand, and RGB lighting (if you really must). All that for about a $75 street price, handily sliding in beneath some of the more exorbitant gamer mice prices out there. For doing an admirable job with any game and fitting into most players’ budgets, the G502 gets our top pick.

Buy on Amazon The Best Gaming Mouse For Shooters: Razer Basilisk ($50)

Razer probably has the best marketing of any of the PC gaming accessory suppliers, and it tends to be a bit…much. But in the case of the Basilisk, the company’s boasting is entirely justified. “Shooter” mice tend to focus on essentials, with two big, thumb-friendly buttons on the side (typically bound to melee and throwables). The Basilisk has this, plus a subtle and removable “sniper button” for temporary sensitivity shifts.

Its position at just a little reach for the thumb is ideal, and unlikely to be hit by accident in the heat of battle. The mouse’s scroll wheel can be micro-adjusted for smoother scrolling or more “clicky” operation, an excellent feature for gamers who bind weapon selection to the wheel.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

How to Use the FREQUENCY Function in Excel

How-To Geek - Wed, 12/26/2018 - 17:24

Excel’s FREQUENCY function lets you count how many times values fall within specific ranges. For example, if you had the ages of a group of people in your spreadsheet, you could figure out how many people fall into different age ranges. Let’s take a look at how to calculate frequency distributions and, with a slight modification, frequency percentages.

What Does the FREQUENCY Function Do?

Excel’s FREQUENCY array function lets you calculate a dataset’s frequency distribution. You provide the numerical dataset (that’s the actual cells you use as your source), a list of bin thresholds (that’s the categories into which you’re sorting data), and then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

So, how might you use it? Well, here’s a quick example. Say you’re a teacher with a spreadsheet that shows all your student’s numerical test scores. You could use the FREQUENCY function to figure out how many students got an A, B, C, D, or F. The numerical test scores are the dataset and the letter grades form your bin thresholds.

You would apply the FREQUENCY function to a list of student’s test scores, and the function would count how many students got which letter grade by comparing each test score to the range of values that define the different letter grades.

If you round scores to the nearest tenth of a percent, these ranges would apply:

F <= 59.9 < D <= 69.9 < C <= 79.9 < B <= 89.9 < A

Excel would assign a score of 79.9 to the C range while a score of 98.2 would fall into the A range.  Excel would go through the list of test scores, categorize each score, count the total number of scores that fall into each range, and return an array with five cells showing the total number of scores in each range.

The FREQUENCY function requires two arrays as inputs: a “Data_array” and a “Bins_array.”  Arrays are simply lists of values. The “Data_array” needs to contain values—like the numerical grades for students—that Excel can compare to a series of thresholds defined in the “Bins_array”—like the letter grades in that same example.

Let’s Look at an Example

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Categories: IT General, Technology

How to Return Audible Audiobooks

How-To Geek - Wed, 12/26/2018 - 16:00

Audible is awesome. For $15 a month, you get your choice of any audiobook in the collection; for $23 a month, you get two books. But what happens if you download a book by accident or waste a credit on one that sounds like it’s being narrated by Gilbert Gottfried huffing helium? Well, the good news is that if you’re not happy for any reason, you can return your Audible purchases. Here’s how.

Audible’s Returns Policy

Like most of Amazon’s returns policies, Audible’s policy is incredibly liberal. There are a few things to bear in mind, though:

  • You must be a member of Audible to return audiobooks.
  • You must return the book within 365 days of purchasing it.
  • You will be refunded in the same way you bought it; if you paid with a credit, you get a credit back.
  • You can return a book even if you’ve listened to it.

Audible’s returns policy is designed so that you feel comfortable trying a random audiobook or different narrator. It’s not so that you can use a single credit to listen to ten books. If Amazon thinks you’re abusing the returns policy, you’ll be unable to return books, customer care will contact you, and your account may be suspended. We don’t have any hard numbers on how many returns you can make. But, if you’re regularly buying audiobooks, listening to them, and then returning them, Audible will notice.

How to Return Audible Books

Go to Audible’s web site and log in to your account. For some reason this only works on Audible’s desktop site, not in the mobile app.

Click your name at the top right of the page, and then click “Account Details” on the dropdown menu.

On your account page, click the “Purchase History” option.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

The Best Standing Desk Keyboard Trays

How-To Geek - Wed, 12/26/2018 - 15:00

Standing desks are a great way to take care of your back, but they’re not always easy on your wrists. If you can’t find a comfortable spot for the keyboard on your standing desk, then we’ve got a keyboard tray for you.

There’s a lot of different keyboard trays on the market. Most of them claim to improve your typing posture, but you need to get the keyboard tray that’s right for your particular standing desk. Otherwise, you’re going to put your wrists through even more strain. For example, you would only want to put an under-desk tray on a standing desk, not on a regular desk with a riser. You know, because bending over to type would be a pain.

That’s why we’ve taken the time to find the best keyboard trays for every kind of standing desk. We’ve even considered two standing desk converters on this list, in case you’re frustrated with your standing desk, or just now considering what it’s like to own one.

First-Rate Acrylics Keyboard Stand ($15)

Let’s start small. If you already have a standing desk or keyboard riser, then there’s a good chance that you don’t need a dedicated keyboard tray. But it couldn’t hurt to grab an ergonomic, tilted keyboard stand for just $15. This tilted keyboard tray by First-Rate Acrylics is made of a durable plastic that should handle your violent keystrokes with gusto. It’s 17″ wide, which is enough space for your average keyboard, and it has a long rubber foot to prevent slippage.

Again, this product isn’t going to convert your regular desk into a standing desk. It’s just going to increase the ergonomics of your standing desk or keyboard riser. It’ll take up a little bit of desk space, and it can’t hold your mouse, but we’ve covered some options that can do those things.

Buy on Amazon Stand Up Desk Under-Desk Keyboard Tray ($44)

If you have a smaller standing desk, then you’re probably not looking for a flashy keyboard tray. An under-desk styled keyboard tray is great for economizing desk space, and it keeps you from standing too close to your desk. The retractable, under-desk keyboard tray by the Stand Up Desk Store is a simple, affordable keyboard solution for your standing desk. It’s more than big enough to fit your average keyboard, and you should have enough space to fit a mouse on it too. This keyboard tray is installed using clamps, so you don’t have to worry about damaging your desk with any holes.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

When You Shouldn’t Shoot RAW Images

How-To Geek - Wed, 12/26/2018 - 15:00

RAW images contain a lot more data than JPEGs. If you’re using a DSLR or mirrorless camera, you should be shooting with RAW most of the time—it makes the most of what your camera is capable. You can even shoot RAW on your iPhone. There are, however, a few situations when you don’t need to shoot—or even shouldn’t shoot—RAW.

RELATED: How to Take Good RAW Photos

If the Photos Don’t Matter or You Want to Be Able to Share Them Quickly

Occasionally I’ll get roped into taking photos at a Christmas party or family event. These aren’t high-quality portraits; they’re just snapshots of—normally, drunk—people. The only reason I’m asked is that people know I have a good camera. Once you get a reputation as a photographer, this will almost certainly happen to you.

When I get badgered into one of these events, my go-to is to set my camera in aperture priority mode, put a flash on my camera if it’s needed, and then wander around doing my own thing, occasionally shooting photos. It’s one of the few times I deliberately shoot JPEG because it means that at the end of the night, I can drag all the photos into a Dropbox (or whatever) folder without even looking at them, and send them on to the organizer. They get all the photos, and I don’t have to spend a few hours working with them in Lightroom.

When You’re Shooting Lots of Bursts

When you shoot a burst with your camera, all the images get saved to a buffer before being written to the storage card. The size of this buffer is one of the main things that limit how long you can shoot a burst. Since JPEGs are much smaller than RAW files, most cameras can store more JPEGs in their buffer and thus shoot longer bursts.

RELATED: Why Does My Camera Slow Down or Stop Shooting Bursts?

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Categories: IT General, Technology

Integrated Graphics Are About to Get Way Better

How-To Geek - Wed, 12/26/2018 - 13:40

Forget buying a dedicated graphics card, pretty soon you’ll be gaming without one. At least, if you’re part of the 90% of people who still game at 1080p or less. Recent advancements from both Intel and AMD mean their integrated GPUs are about to tear up the low-end graphics card market.

Why Are iGPUs So Slow in the First Place?

There are two reasons: memory and die size.

The memory part is easy to understand: faster memory equals better performance. iGPUs don’t get the benefits of fancy memory technologies like GDDR6 or HBM2, though, and instead, have to rely on sharing the system RAM with the rest of the computer. This is mostly because it’s expensive to put that memory on the chip itself, and iGPUs are usually targeted at budget gamers. This isn’t changing anytime soon, at least not from what we know now, but improving memory controllers allowing for faster RAM can improve next-gen iGPU performance.

The second reason, die size, is what’s changing in 2019. GPU dies are big—way bigger than CPUs, and big dies are bad business for silicon manufacturing. This comes down to the defect rate. A larger area has a higher chance of defects, and one defect in the die can mean the whole CPU is toast.

You can see in this (hypothetical) example below that doubling the die size results in a much lower yield because each defect lands in a much larger area. Depending on where the defects occur, they can render an entire CPU worthless. This example isn’t exaggerated for effect; depending on the CPU, the integrated graphics can take up nearly half the die.

 

Die space is sold to different component manufacturers at a very high premium, so it’s hard to justify investing a ton of space into a much better iGPU when that space could be used for other things like increased core counts. It’s not that the tech isn’t there; if Intel or AMD wanted to make a chip that was 90% GPU, they could, but their yields with a monolithic design would be so low that it wouldn’t even be worth it.

Enter: Chiplets

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Categories: IT General, Technology

How to Set Up and Configure Your Amazon Echo

How-To Geek - Tue, 12/25/2018 - 18:23

So you just got an Amazon Echo, either from the recent sales or the holidays. Let’s take a look at how to set it up and some useful things you can task your Echo with.

What Is the Amazon Echo?

Simply put, the Echo is a voice-controlled virtual assistant that lets you control smarthome devices, check the weather, play music, get news updates, and more.

RELATED: Which Amazon Echo Should I Buy? Echo vs. Dot vs. Show vs. Plus and More

There are a handful of different Echo models that you can choose from. The main Echo is the $99 version which comes with a decent speaker for the price. There’s also the cheaper $50 Echo Dot on the lower end (which comes with laptop-quality sound in a smaller package), and on the higher end is the $150 Echo Plus, which has a built-in smarthome hub and a slightly better speaker than the $99 model. You can also get Echos that have screens on them, like the Echo Show and Echo Spot.

Before we set the Echo up and play around with it, though, let’s take a quick tour of the physical device and its buttons. In this guide, we’ll be setting up the regular Echo model, but setting any of them works pretty much the same.

As far as physical manipulation goes, there are three things on the Echo you can mess with: the microphone button (which toggles the listening feature on and off), the action button (which, when tapped, summons Alexa without having to say anything), and the volume buttons. On the Echo Plus (and the previous-generation Echos) there’s a volume ring around the edge, rather than volume buttons.

RELATED: How to Get the Most Out of Your Amazon Echo

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Categories: IT General, Technology

So You Just Got a PlayStation 4. Now What?

How-To Geek - Tue, 12/25/2018 - 17:24

Christmas has come and gone, the paper torn off of every box under the tree, and you just scored a brand new PlayStation 4 (or Pro!). Congratulations! It is, at least in this writer’s humble opinion, the best version of the PlayStation that has ever existed—especially the Pro. Let’s make the most of it, shall we?

RELATED: What’s the Difference Between the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Slim, and PlayStation 4 Pro?

So, first things first—let’s figure out which PlayStation 4 you have. There are technically three versions of the console at this point: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Slim, and PlayStation 4 Pro. Clearly you can look at the box and see which one you have, and the good news is that most of the things we’re going to talk about will apply to all three version, save for some of the Pro-exclusive features, which we’ll make note of.

Tweak Your System Settings

There are an absolute ton of little tweaks you can make to get a better overall experience from your system—everything from automatically turning on your TV when you turn on the console to taking faster screenshots. Here’s a short list of some of the best things to do—along with links that explain how to do them.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg—little tweaks that just make the system a little bit better.

Always Use Rest Mode

RELATED: Should You Use “Rest Mode” on Your PlayStation 4, or Turn It Off?

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Categories: IT General, Technology

So You Just Got a Google Home. Now What?

How-To Geek - Tue, 12/25/2018 - 16:00

So you scored a Google Home for Christmas. That’s awesome because this is a killer little smart speaker that can do a lot of different things—in fact, it can be a little overwhelming. The good news is that we’ve got you covered. Here are some ideas on where to get started with your new Home.

Set Up Your New Google Home

First things first: you have to set that bad boy up because it’s basically useless in the box. But before we get into that, I want to take a quick minute to address something that is constantly on users’ minds when they get an always-listening device like Google Home: it’s not spying on everything you sayIt only listens for the hotword (“OK Google” or “Hey Google”), but that’s it. Nothing is recorded or transmitted back to Google until it hears those words. I promise.

With that out of the way, let’s get your new speaker set up. The first thing you’ll want to do is plug your Home up and download the Google Home app for iOS or Android.

Launch it and run through the tutorial—it’s all pretty straightforward. Once the phone finds the new Home, it will let you know. If it finds other devices (like smart lights or plugs), it will show those, too. Select your new Home device and hit “Next.” It’ll then play a sound on your new Home to make sure it’s connected to the right one and you’ll confirm.

From there, you’ll establish a room and connect the Home to Wi-Fi. After it’s all connected, you’ll sign in to your Google account—assuming you’ve set up Google Assistant on your phone, your voice settings will automatically be imported. That’s cool.

If this is the first time you’re setting up Google Assistant, you’ll be able to teach it to recognize your voice. If you’ve already set it up on another device, it can pull the voice model from there for you.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

So You Just Got an Amazon Fire Tablet. Now What?

How-To Geek - Tue, 12/25/2018 - 15:00

Hey, congratulations on your new tablet! The Amazon Fire Tablet series offers, without a doubt, some of the best bang for your buck devices you can get in today’s tablet market. You’re going to love it.

As solid as it is out of the box, there are a few things you can do to make that bad boy even better. So let’s go to it.

Install the Google Play Store

RELATED: How to Install the Google Play Store on the Amazon Fire Tablet or Fire HD 8

By default, the Fire Tablet line ships with the Amazon Appstore. The Appstore isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s definitely a few steps behind the Google Play Store in terms of content and updates. But since Fire OS is based off of Android, you can easily sideload the Google Play Store for full access to everything Google has to offer.

The process doesn’t require a rooted device and is fairly straightforward—it’s little more than a few app downloads—so hit up this guide and get to work. You’ll be glad you did it.

Switch Up Your Launcher

RELATED: How to Use a Different Home Screen Launcher on the Amazon Fire Tablet (Without Rooting It)

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Categories: IT General, Technology

How to Suggest an Edit in Google Docs

How-To Geek - Mon, 12/24/2018 - 22:00

Google Docs lets you suggest edits on a document when you’re collaborating with others. After you suggest an edit, the document’s owner can then accept or delete it. Here’s how it works.

RELATED: How to See Recent Changes to Your Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides File

How to Suggest an Edit in Google Docs

When you’re viewing a document in Google Docs, you’re doing so in one of three states:

  • Editing: This view means you’re directly editing the document.
  • Suggesting: This view means the edits you make show up as suggestions.
  • Viewing: This state gives you a nice clean view for reading or printing.

If you look up at the top right of the document window, you’ll see your current state. If you see “Suggesting” then you’re good to go. If you see “Editing” or “Viewing” then click that button and then click the “Suggesting” option.

If you don’t see the option to suggest edits, you may need to ask the owner to give you the proper editing permissions to do so.

RELATED: How to Create Shareable Download Links for Files on Google Drive

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Categories: IT General, Technology

Things You Should Never Post Online but Probably Are

How-To Geek - Mon, 12/24/2018 - 17:24

It’s easy to get excited about something and post it on social media for all your friends and family to see, and maybe even the rest of the world. But there are some things that you shouldn’t post online, even if it might seem obvious.

Event Tickets

Whether it’s for a concert or a sporting event, it’s generally not a good idea to post a photo of the ticket on your social media accounts.

This is because pretty much all tickets these days use a barcode that gets scanned at the gate to permit entrance into the event. It’s easy to copy these barcodes from a photo and then use them to create a duplicate ticket.

Someone can take that photo of your ticket and use it themselves to gain entrance into a game or other event. So think twice before sharing that beloved golden ticket online.

Credit & Debit Cards

This one seems obvious, but apparently, it happens more than you might think. Don’t believe me? This now-defunct Twitter account gives you the proof.

I know that it seems exciting enough to share a photo of your new fancy credit card (yay for rewards and cash back!), but anyone can use all those numbers on that card to purchase something online. Worse yet, it can be the beginning of full-on identity theft.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

A Recent IE Patch is Causing Windows to Fail While Booting on Some Lenovo Laptops

How-To Geek - Mon, 12/24/2018 - 16:33

Microsoft has seen its share of issues as of late, and now a seemingly simple patch is causing serious issues to certain laptops running the 2016 Anniversary Update. The update was originally released to prevent a zero-day attack on IE.

Per Microsoft, this was the issue being fixed:

A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that the scripting engine handles objects in memory in Internet Explorer. The vulnerability could corrupt memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could take control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website, for example, by sending an email.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by modifying how the scripting engine handles objects in memory.

But now that fix is causing a pretty big problem of its own: it’s preventing certain laptops from booting. The affected machines are part of a pretty small bunch—only Lenovo laptops with less than 8 GB of RAM running the 2016 Anniversary Update (1607)—but it’s still a pretty bad problem to have.

Fortunately, there’s a way to bypass the failed boot by restarting into the UEFI and disabling Secure Boot. It’s also noted that if BitLocker is enabled that you may have to go through BitLocker recovery after disabling Secure Boot.

On the upside, Microsoft is working with Lenovo to correct the issue and will release a fix sometime in the future. I just wouldn’t count on it before the end of the year. Until then, be careful when updating devices, especially if they happen to be Lenovo laptops with limited RAM.

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Categories: IT General, Technology
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