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Showing posts from January, 2019

We’re Looking for General Interest Writers

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Are you an experienced writer who has life skills you want to share with the world? We’re looking for general interest freelance writers for another publication, and we’d like to hear from you. What We’re Looking For We need smart, curious, detail-oriented writers who are comfortable researching and writing advice about various aspects of life in general. This is an ongoing freelance position, and we’re looking for writers who can start immediately. In particular, we’re looking for experienced writers in the following areas: Finance Cleaning & Organization DIY and Home Repair Travel Parenting & School Personal Care Shopping Fitness & Health Relationships Time Management And don’t worry if you don’t have experience in all those topics. Even if you can write about one or two of them, we want to hear from you. All  of our writers should have the following qualities: You must be able to write tips, how-to articles, and more detailed explainers that are clear

Lowe’s Is Officially Dumping Its Iris Smarthome Platform for Good

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Several months ago, Lowe’s announced that it would be seeking a buyer for its Iris smarthome platform . However, it appears no one wants it, as Lowe’s has announced it’s officially shutting down Iris. In an official statement sent to Review Geek, Lowe’s says that it “will shut down the Iris smart home platform and services on March 31” and will be refunding eligible users who bought Iris devices, although the specifics on that aren’t yet known. You can read the full official statement from Lowe’s below. Lowe’s announced today it will shut down the Iris smart home platform and services on March 31, 2019. We apologize for any inconvenience to our Iris customers and are committed to providing the resources and support needed to transition to a comparable smart home platform. We have created an online redemption process that will allow Iris customers to receive a Visa prepaid card for eligible, connected Iris devices. After carefully evaluating a range of options, the decision was mad

The Nokia 2 V Android Go Phone Can Be Yours Today for $70 on Verizon

Something Happened: Windows Setup Error Messages Will Finally Be Useful (Maybe)

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Microsoft Community Upgrading to a new version of Windows is often a straightforward affair. But when something doesn’t go right, you’re left with vague errors that aren’t helpful. In the next version of Windows , Microsoft will try to solve that. If you’ve ever encountered an error during Windows Setup, you’ve probably been left completely frustrated and wondering what to do. The message you see most likely didn’t have any description of the problem and just listed the letters KB followed by a string of numbers. If you tried to search, you were lead to dozens of entirely different entries that didn’t match up to your KB numbers and did nothing to clarify the situation. Microsoft has started showing off new setup screens to directly tackle this issue in a recent Windows Insider Webinar , as spotted by WinFuture . Starting at just after the hour mark, Microsoft’s James Atkins and Julia Troxell laid out the problem clearly, and the steps they are taking to solve this problem going fo

How To Enable Dashboard in macOS Mojave

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For some inexplicable reason, Apple decided to disable Dashboard by default in macOS Mojave, and it’s nothing short of a travesty. Thankfully, turning it back on is a simple affair. Here’s how to go about restoring Dashboard to its rightful glory. For those unfamiliar with Dashboard, it’s a collection of widgets that has been around ever since Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger shipped many years ago. Dashboard lets you select widgets you can easily access without interfering with other apps, or having to launch any apps to do a simple task. Calculators, sticky notes, easy access to the weather, and more were perfect uses for Dashboard. Think of how widgets work on iOS, and you’ve got the right idea. We’re not sure why, but Apple has left Dashboard to languish , completely disabling it in macOS Mojave. That’s a real shame because we often find ourselves wanting to do a quick calculation, for example. Opening the Calculator isn’t difficult, but there’s no need if you have a calculator a key press a

The Best Landscape Photography Gear for Your Camera

Here’s How to Save Your Google+ Data Before It Shuts down on April 2nd

“Pause Ads” Are Coming to Hulu, Here’s What You Need to Know

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Late last year, it was revealed that Hulu would start showing ads when users pause a stream. While this sounds absolutely terrible, how this is going to work in reality doesn’t sound so bad. First off, these won’t be video ads, but instead just static images on the side of the screen. That immediately makes it less obtrusive and keeps the ads out of the way. Really, it’s a smart way of doing it, because it doesn’t bother users  that much and keeps the ad revenue coming for Hulu. The second part of the equation here is  who will see these ads. That answer is equally as simple: according to Engadget , any user who subscribes to Hulu’s ad-supported tier—which just got a couple dollar price drop , by the way—will be subject to this new ad format. Users who subscribe to Hulu’s ad-free tier will continue to, well, not get ads. Pretty simple. Finally, there’s the  when . These ads will start to roll out “this spring,” which is just right around the corner despite w hat weather reports

Linux’s GNOME Shell 3.32 Will Bring Major Speed Improvements

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GNOME Shell 3.32 is set for release on March 13, 2019. This new release brings some real performance improvements, making this heavy Linux desktop environment more lightweight. GNOME Shell is used by default on Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions. The GNOME Shell desktop environment has long been rather heavy compared to other Linux desktop environments. As Ubuntu news site OMG! Ubuntu! points out: See, the GNOME Shell desktop is often criticised as being a bit on the ‘heavy’ side. Folks blast it for having comparatively high memory usage on start-up, for being taxing on the CPU, and for having a UI that often stutters or drops frames during usage. But it’s getting better. These latest improvements are thanks to both the “upstream” GNOME Project and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. Georges Stavracas, a developer who did a lot of the work, lays out a lot of technical details on his blog . A number of improvements result in improved frame rates, smoother startup animati

Deal Alert: Score a Logitech G602 Wireless Gaming Mouse for Just $25

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Take a look at your mouse. Is it old? Is it crusty? Does it go unresponsive every few minutes? Why don’t you replace that dumpy old mouse with something clean and responsive, like the Logitech G603? Right now, Amazon is selling the popular Logitech G603 wireless mouse for just $25. We’ve covered the G603 before—it’s our favorite wireless gaming mouse . It’s a comfortable, responsive mouse that can get you through an arduous gaming session or a tough work week. This premium mouse retails at $60, and it has some features that are usually reserved for more expensive mice. The Logitech G603 sports the HERO optical sensor, which happens to be Logitech’s most advanced sensor. It can connect to your computer via Bluetooth or LIGHTSPEED RF connection, which has a lag time of about 1 ms. The G603 also has six programmable buttons, so you can adapt the mouse for any video game or application. If you’re excited to finally replace your old mouse with the G603, then you may be interested in the

23 Gifts For An Avid Indoor Gardener

Beta Test New Firefox Features with Mozilla’s Reference Browser for Android

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Years ago, Mozilla’s “Test Pilot” initiative encouraged users to beta test mobile versions of the Firefox browser. Now, Mozilla is asking users to use its new Reference Browser to help bring a new generation of Firefox to Android phones. Firefox is one of the most popular browsers for Android. It’s fast, can sync with the Firefox browser on your desktop, and implements tab features better than most mobile browsers. But the world of mobile phones is beginning to shift. By the end of the year, we’re going to see phones that use 5G , phones that fold open into tablets , and phones that have 1 TB of internal storage . With all of these changes coming right around the corner, Mozilla needs to bring its mobile browser to a new level. In a post in the Mozilla community , Paul Wright, a leading Firefox contributor, announced that Mozilla is starting to build more powerful mobile apps. These apps will take advantage of Geckoview and Glean, and they’ll utilize more account integration. Presum

How to Save PowerPoint Objects as Pictures

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If you’ve ever thought it would be useful to save objects or entire slides from your PowerPoint presentation as images to use in another program, then you’re in luck! You can do precisely that in a few simple steps. Saving Objects as Images in PowerPoint Saving an object, or even multiple objects, from your PowerPoint presentation is extremely handy. The thing that makes this trick so useful is that the objects are saved, by default, as a transparent PNG file, meaning that you won’t have the invasive background that you would otherwise have if you just took a simple screenshot. We’re going to use the following slide as an example over the next few sections. In this slide, we have a total of four objects. Image (“The Geek”) Text box (Title) Text box (Subtitle) Shape (Line) Save a Single Object as an Image To save an object as an image, we first need to select the object to be saved. In this example, we’ll select our title. Right-click the object and select “Save as Pictur

Stock Up on New Logitech Gear with Today’s Amazon Sale

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If you’ve been in the market for a new keyboard, mouse, headset, webcam, or speakers, today’s Amazon sale on a handful of Logitech products has you covered. Granted, this isn’t the first time that a bunch of Logitech stuff has been discounted on Amazon, nor is it the largest Logitech sale we’ve seen, but it’s never a bad time to buy when you can get a good chunk knocked off the price of that one gaming mouse you’ve had your eye on for a while. Case in point, you can grab the Logitech G602 wireless gaming mouse for just $25 , which is a steal considering the product that you’re getting. Furthermore, if you need a cheap gaming headset, the G430 is just $30 right now. And if you need a basic wireless keyboard and mouse to just get you by, the MK270 combo is just a bit shy of $15 . Make your decisions quickly, though, since this deal will only be around today. Hit the button below to see all the goodies on sale today—some of it is going for up to 70 percent off, so it’s worth a peek

UltraViolet is Shutting Down on July 31st, Here’s How to Transfer Your Movies

How to Prevent Storage Sense From Deleting Your Downloaded Files on Windows 10

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Storage Sense is the Disk Cleanup replacement for the modern world. It frees up space on your computer by deleting things like recycle bin contents, temporary internet files, and app temporary files. This also includes the Downloads folder, but you can change that if you don’t want Storage Sense emptying it. We’ve mentioned before how the Free Up Space tool in Windows 10 will delete your downloads by default (though you can turn it off, too). Storage Sense is the automatic equivalent to that tool and is the intended replacement for the venerable Disk Cleanup tool. By default, Storage Sense treats your Downloads folder as a temp folder, deleting anything older than 30 days when it runs. If you use your Downloads as a more permanent storage area for downloads, you can prevent Storage Sense from deleting your downloads. How to Prevent Storage Sense From Deleting Your Downloaded Files Open the Settings app by pressing Win+I, then clicking on “System.” On the left side of the System

How to Declutter Your Web Browser Bookmarks

8 Portable Office Essentials to Stay Productive On the Go

For a Better Instagram Experience, Follow Hashtags Instead of People

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If you’ve been using Instagram for a while, you probably already know what a great place it is to find inspiration. But to see the best content, ditch following users and start looking at hashtags instead. Following hashtags on Instagram isn’t a new feature, but it’s one you shouldn’t overlook—its hard to overstate their value. In my opinion, this is one of the best parts of the entire network. Why? Because it allows me two conveniences: first, it bypasses all the fluff most users post; and secondly, it lets me build a specially curated feed. For example, I mostly use Instagram for my hobbies: guitars and bikes. Those are my favorite things to look at on Instagram because there’s just so much good, relevant content. These things inspire me to dig deeper into my hobbies and give me ideas for ways to improve technique, form, and so on. But here’s the thing: while there are many curated accounts out there, they don’t always show what I want to see. I fact, they miss the mark more ofte

Bluetooth 5.1’s Presence Detection Could Be the Future of Smarthome

Bluetooth 5.1: What’s New and Why It Matters

Geek Trivia: The Screen Of Space Invaders Was Colored By What?

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The Screen Of Space Invaders Was Colored By What? Cellophane Lasers Holograms Semi-Precious Stones Think you know the answer?

These New Chargers from Anker and RAVPower Offer More Power in a Smaller Package

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Tiny wall chargers already exist, but they can usually only pump out 5-10W. With a new technology called gallium nitride, however, those tiny wall chargers can now pump out a lot more power. Several months ago, Anker introduced the PowerPort Atom series of USB-C wall chargers, the smallest of which is just a tad larger than Apple’s 5W iPhone charger, but packs in 30W of charging power, which is quite incredible. This will let you charge up larger devices than just your smartphone or tablet—possibly a small laptop. The secret? It uses gallium nitride (GaN) instead of traditional silicon, the latter of which is used in pretty much every electronic product on the market, thanks to how cheap it is. Anker says that gallium nitride allows for simpler circuitry and better efficiency (meaning less heat production), resulting in the smaller size. The 30W model (called the PD 1) is up on Amazon right now  for $29 (although it appears to be sold out currently). Two more from Anker will be a

How to Link to Another Slide in the Same PowerPoint Presentation

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If you know you’ll be referring to the content of a previously-viewed slide at some point during your presentation, it might be useful to insert a link pointing back to that slide for quick access. Here’s how to set it up. Linking to Another Slide in the Same Presentation Open your presentation and navigate to the slide that will contain the hyperlink. Once there, highlight the text, object, shape, or image to which you want to attach the link. Next, head over to the “Insert” tab and click the “Link” button. In the Insert Hyperlink window that opens, select “Place in This Document” on the “Link To” list on the left. On the right, under the “Select a place in this document” list, select the destination slide. Read the remaining 24 paragraphs

The Best Fitness Trackers For Kids

You Can Get Meizu’s Portless Phone for $1299…On Indiegogo

1TB Phones Are Coming, Thanks To Samsung

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Samsung just announced that it’s mass-producing 1TB storage chips for phones, which means your phone of the future may come with more storage than you could ever need. Say goodbye to the days of full-the-day-you-get-it 16GB phones. Four years ago, Samsung introduced the first embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) device. It was a piece of hardware that could read and write files much faster than an SD card, and its 128 GB capacity eliminated the need for users to add additional storage to their phone. It’s been four years since Samsung developed eUFS technology, and eUFS has expanded from 128GB to offer 256G and even 512GB storage options for mobile devices, which is just massive. To put it in perspective, the basic model of the iPhone X only has a 64 GB capacity, and the basic Surface Pro tablet, which retails at almost $1000, only comes with 128 GB of internal storage. But now, Samsung has been able to break the terabyte barrier with its newest eUFS chips. Samsung plans to anno

GoPro Boosts Its Cloud Storage for Unlimited Video Uploads

Lenovo’s 4K Yoga Chromebook C630 Is Available to Order

Deal Alert: Grab An Entry-Level Surface Pro For Just $649

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Microsoft’s line of Surface tablets have been extremely successful, but they’re a bit expensive. Now’s your chance to grab one for cheap. Tablets have become more and more powerful over the past few years, and the line between tablets and laptops has started to dissolve. The perception that tablets are only useful for playing games and watching Netflix is no longer correct, these are serious devices that can be used for work, video editing, sound design, and graphic design. Apple users have the iPad Pro, but in the world of Windows, the Surface Pro tablet is the king. Surface Pro tablets have gotten a lot of praise for their balance of power and portability. They have responsive touch-screens, a long battery life, and premium detachable keyboards. Right now, you can buy a basic Surface Pro tablet for just $649 from Best Buy—that’s a $310 discount. It’s the base model with a 12.3″ touch screen, 4GB of RAM, an Intel M3 processor, and 128 GB of solid-state memory. If the basic Surfac

Switcheroo Review: A Simple Lighting Solution for Switched Outlets

How to Create a Radar Chart in Excel

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A radar chart compares the values of three or more variables relative to a central point. It’s useful when you cannot directly compare the variables and is especially great for visualizing performance analysis or survey data. Here’s a sample radar chart, so you can see what we’re talking about. It’s likely you’ve run across them before, even if you didn’t know that’s what they were. Creating Radar Charts in Excel is straightforward. In this article, we’ll show you how to create two types of Radar Chart: a regular chart (like the one above) and a filled chart (like the one below, which fills in the areas instead of just showing the outlines). The Sample Data Let’s first take a look at the sample data we’ll be using for our examples. We have three trainers: Graham, Barbara, and Keith. We’ve assessed them in five different categories (Knowledge, Delivery, and so on) and our Excel table contains those ratings. Create a Radar Chart in Excel Read the remaining 33 paragraphs

iFixit Will Sell Its iPhone Battery Replacement Kits for $30 Through 2019

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If you still haven’t gotten the battery replaced in your older iPhone, the price to do so by Apple has gone back up . However, if you’re intrigued about doing it yourself, iFixit is still discounting its battery replacement kits  at $30. If you’re out of the loop, it was discovered a little over a year ago that Apple was purposely throttling down iPhones with old, degraded batteries to prevent random shutdowns and other problems. The fix? Replace the battery . But Apple didn’t tell anyone that until they were caught red-handed. At that point, Apple began offering discounted battery replacements, which also led to increased wait times at Apple Stores. iFixit stepped in and discounted its battery replacement kits so that if you didn’t want to wait on Apple, you could do it yourself instead. And while it may seem daunting, it’s actually not too bad of a process . If you’re not sure if your iPhone could use a battery replacement in the first place, you can check the battery health by

American Airlines Teams Up with Apple for Free In-Flight Music

Deal Alert: Grab an Original 6-Camera Arlo System for just $360

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There’s no doubt that the newer Arlo Pro camera systems from Netgear are really, really good, but if you just want something simple and cheap to cover your house, this deal on a 6-camera system isn’t too bad. The system comes with the hub and six cameras, which should be plenty to cover every corner of your house. And for just $360, that’s not a bad a price to pay for whole-house camera coverage. Granted, it’s Netgear’s original Arlo system, so it only records up to 720p and doesn’t use their latest rechargeable batteries. Instead, it uses unique CR123A batteries, which you can find at most stores, but they’re certainly not as common as AA or AAA batteries. However, they can still do night vision and provide motion alerts, and you’ll get the same free 7-day video storage that you would with Arlo’s newer systems. What’s more, is that while Arlo still sells these older systems , they don’t sell a system with six cameras. So if you absolutely want or need six cameras, I would bite n

How to Set an App Time Limit on iPhone and iPad

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With the arrival of iOS 12 , Apple made a big song and dance about digital wellbeing. The App Limits feature that came with it lets lock apps after a given amount of time. Here’s how it works. App Limits is precisely what it sounds like; it limits the amount of time you can spend using a particular app. You specify the apps (or whole categories of apps) and iOS will refuse to launch them when you’ve reached the allotted time. It’s great for limiting how much time children spend on apps like YouTube, for example, but can also help you if you struggle setting limits on things like your social media addiction. By the way, even after you reach an App Limit, you can override it by entering a passcode. That means you will never be locked out of your apps completely (unless you don’t know the code), but setting the limit still might be enough to give you pause when opening Instagram for the millionth time at 3 am. How to Set an App Limit for a Specific App To kick things off, open the Se

The Best PC Games of 2018 (That Don’t Need a Graphics Card)

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So you’d like to play some awesome PC games, but you’re stuck on your dusty laptop with integrated graphics. It just can’t handle the latest GPU-melting AAA masterpieces, but that’s no problem—we have you covered. Rather than just tell you to play older (but good games) like, say, Torchlight we’ve selected the best PC games from 2018 that can run on pretty much any machine from the last five years, even (and especially) on the kind of integrated graphics that are common in ultraportable and budget computers. These are fresh (but not GPU-melting) games that are contemporary and laptop friendly. The list is mostly 2D titles, which will indeed run on almost anything, but a few 3D games have also been made specifically with integrated graphics in mind. You ‘ll find at least something to pique your interest in the list below, and all of them should be playable on any Windows-powered machine you might find in Best Buy. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt almost all of the games below are under $25 at

Why Face ID Is Much More Secure Than Android’s Face Unlock

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Unlocking your phone using your face is the new hotness, mostly thanks to Apple’s Face ID. Android has had a similar feature since 2015 called  Trusted Face , but it’s not even close to the same thing. How Does Face ID Work? Apple put  a lot of tech into getting Face ID to work in a way that was not only intuitive and accurate but also incredibly secure. In short, it creates a 3D map of your face by using a combination of infrared light and image capture. Forbes did a great job of explaining this : It uses infrared (IR) light to illuminate your face while capturing the images, to work day or night, outside or indoors. IR spans wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation (known commonly as ‘light’) just beyond the visible spectrum, so iPhone X’s display won’t dazzle you in the dark. In more layman’s terms, it uses a variety of sensors combined with the device’s camera to create a 3D map of what you  really look like—that’s why it works in the dark or light, with a hat on, with or

How to Add Presets to Adobe Lightroom

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Presets are one of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s most powerful features ; with them, you can use the same settings over and over again. The most common presets are Develop presets that consistently apply the same edits to any image. RELATED: What Is Adobe Lightroom, and Do I Need It? As well as Develop presets, Lightroom has presets for most of its features. For example, there are Metadata presets, Import presets, Export presets, Keyword sets, Slideshow presets, Watermarks, and more. While you can make your own presets, there are a thriving community and marketplace of presets made by other people. Let’s look at how to install them in Adobe Lightroom. Why Use Presets The big advantages of presets are that they are consistent and quick. If you always make the same few adjustments to an image , a preset lets you apply them all with a single click. This is great for professional photographers who have to process hundreds or thousands of images. Also, if you’re just starting and you