Apple’s Touch ID is good. The ability to unlock your iPhone or iPad with your fingerprint is a a killer feature that doesn’t work as well on other devices. That said, it can always be better and improved very easily. We have covered Touch ID before, showing you how to enroll other fingerprints beyond you primary finger. That said, you can improve Touch ID’s fingerprint recognition a great deal by enrolling the same finger two or three more times....

Emoji work basically anywhere these days, including in Microsoft Word documents. Jazz up your documents with colorful emoji icons that work on all modern operating systems, including Windows 10, Windows 11, macOS, iPhone, iPad, Android, and the web. You can type an emoji in Word in the same way you can type an emoji in any other application. While typing in a Word document, use the appropriate keyboard shortcut for your operating system:...

Most optical disc drives require you to press a button on the front of the drive to open it. This button can be hard to find or get to on some machines. However, you can use a keyboard shortcut to open your optical drive. There’s a free utility, called Door Control, that allows you to easily open your optical drive using an icon in the system tray or a keyboard shortcut you specify....

Many smart thermostats claim they can save you money on your heating and air conditioning bills. Indeed, you might save a considerable amount of money by getting a Nest or Ecobee3, but they can also cost you more money if your house itself isn’t optimized for good airflow. RELATED: How to Install and Set Up the Nest Thermostat If you constantly dread looking at your energy bill every month, it might not be the thermostat causing the problems, so a smart thermostat alone won’t be able to save you....

Most games confine your cursor to the game’s window unless you Alt+Tab out of it. But occasionally, if you have multiple monitors, you’ll get a game that lets your cursor “drift” onto another screen while you play. You can prevent that with a free tool called Cursor Lock. Cursor Lock is a handy little utility from a developer who calls himself Snake that lets you, well, “lock” the cursor to a specific program–most commonly, a game....

In Windows, icons for shortcuts have little arrows to remind you that what you’re looking at is a shortcut. Even though the arrows are smaller than in some previous versions of Windows, they aren’t terribly attractive. Fortunately, they’re pretty easy to remove. Removing those little arrows requires a tweak to the Windows Registry, but there are a few different ways of going about it. These methods should work in Windows 7, 8, and 10....

If your PC has been feeling buggy or having trouble during startup, it’s possible that Windows system files have become corrupt, gone missing, or even have been changed by a software installation somewhere along the line. Like most versions of Windows before it, Windows 10 includes a Command Prompt utility named Windows Resource Protection that will scan, verify, and fix system files. If your system is able to start, even in Safe Mode, you can run the utility right from Windows....

Why Do I Want To Do This? Why disable the microphone system on your Echo? Because everybody needs a little time alone? While we’re confident that someone who was genuinely worried about the privacy implications of the always-at-your-finger-tips Alexa voice-assistant system wouldn’t actually purchase an Echo in the first place, those of us who are less concerned about the matter and actually own Echo may still have reasons for wanting to disable the microphone now and then....

Outlook does a great job of keeping you informed about new emails by using several different methods to alert you. Here are all of the ways you can be alerted, and how to turn off or customize them. Outlook uses the following four methods to alert you about new emails: Playing a sound Changing the mouse pointer Showing an email icon in the taskbar Displaying a banner alert in the bottom right of the screen (top right for Mac users)...

Are you tired of your Apple Watch nagging you to stand up? You’re not alone. Here’s how to disable these stand reminders. Your Watch will still track how much you’ve stood up each day, but it won’t bug you to stand up each hour. Why Do I Want To Do This? Apple had the very best of intentions when they included the “Time to stand!” reminder in the Apple Watch....

Cortana is billed as more than a simple search feature. It’s supposed to be a full-fledged personal assistant much like Siri is on Apple iOS devices. Here are the basics of setting up Cortana and using it on your new Windows 10 computer. To use Cortana properly, you’re going to have to enable some privacy settings that we’ve previously discussed, most notably you have to enable the Privacy setting in “Speech, Inking, & Typing”....

Microsoft does offer a web-based version of Skype, so you can chat with your friends on your Chromebook. There’s no official voice or video support yet, but there are ways around that. If you depend on Skype for voice-and-video chatting, you may want to try Google Hangouts instead. Hangouts works well across Chromebooks, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Use Skype for Web (Instant Messaging Only) Microsoft now provides a version of Skype that works directly in a browser, and even works for Chromebooks....

If you use Safari on your iPad or iPhone, you can store website passwords and then manage them using the Passwords settings. The passwords manager on iOS is easy to use, and one of the best we’ve found on mobile devices. We know that having and using a passwords manager is all but a necessity on any computer or mobile device. For one, if you’re even moderately security conscious, you are probably using strong passwords....

When you’re a geek on the move, it’s easy to get overburdened with gadgets. Today we take a look at a handy little gadget that lightens the load: a combination device that’s each an external battery pack, Wi-Fi router, and micro NAS. Read on as we see if it really can kill three birds with one stone. What Is The TripMate? The TripMate is a combination device. It’s part battery pack; you can use it to recharge your devices on the go....

Hotkey Cheat Sheet for Google Calendar Here is a comprehensive listing of all the hotkeys available for use in Google Calendar: Navigation Refresh Calendar: R Go To Previous Date Range: P or K Go To Next Date Range: J or N Go To Current Day: T Go To Add Calendar: + Go To Search: / Go To Settings: S Go To Specific Date: G Go To Today: T Go To Tasks & Keep (Windows): Ctrl+Alt+....

Have you ever heard of the Tab Groups feature from Mozilla’s Firefox web browser? If you said no then you’re not alone, in fact, Mozilla has recently stated that they estimate the Tab Groups feature is used by “around 0.01% of users” and due to this estimate they have decided to remove this feature from Firefox starting with Firefox 45. As it turns out, I’m one of those 0.01% of users and this decision had significantly shattered my workflow....

In early January 2022, the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) published the final specifications for PCIe 6.0, the latest version of the standard for the popular interface standard that connects items like graphics cards, SSDs, and network cards to your PC. As we’ve seen with past transitions, PCIe 6.0 promises faster data speeds and backwards compatibility with that beloved old sound card of yours. We couldn’t have the speedy computers we do without PCIe, but a glut of standards may make the next few years a little messy....

In this day and age, there’s no reason to shut down your computer, then sit through the boot-up process when you want to use it. Save yourself time by putting your computer to sleep or hibernating it instead. Modern computers–whether they’re laptops, desktops, or tablets–are designed to be used in this way. This applies to Windows PCs, Macs, Linux systems, Chromebooks, and everything else. Why Sleep and Hibernate Are Awesome If you regularly use a computer, shutting down is extremely inconvenient....

In many programming languages, there is the concept of scope. Defined as what variables and functions are available in what context. An example is if a variable is available to every function within a PowerShell script, or just a single defined function. PowerShell Scopes encompass several different scopes that can be used such as Global, Local, or Script scopes. What are the PowerShell Scopes? As mentioned in the introduction, there are several primary scopes....

As with previous models, V-Moda isn’t shy about saying that the Crossfade 3 Wireless are aimed at DJs and fans of club music. This time around, the company has doubled the battery life over the previous model, improved its Bluetooth audio codecs, and made subtle improvements to the sound signature. Do these headphones hold up to modern competition? With one notable exception, yes they do. Design and Comfort If you’ve seen the older Crossfade 2, the Crossfade 3 Wireless will look familiar....