Need to quickly access your VPN in Windows 10? In just a few steps, it’s easy to create a shortcut to your VPN on your Windows desktop. Here’s how to do it. Requirements Before we get started, it’s important to understand that you can only create a desktop shortcut to your VPN using this method if you’ve configured your VPN with Windows 10’s built-in VPN tool. It won’t work if you use a VPN client or third-party app to connect to the VPN network....

iCloud will sync all the bookmarks you create in Safari on your Mac to your iPad or iPhone, and vice-versa. But bookmarks aren’t quite as simple and obvious on the iPhone as they are on the Mac. Here’s how to create and manage them on iOS. Adding bookmarks on your iPhone is easy, but it’s not immediately obvious. The first thing you’re likely to do is fumble around in your existing bookmarks before you realize that isn’t working....

iOS makes smart use of the Home button. You can double-click to switch apps, and even triple-click to do all sorts of things. The speed at which you need to click the Home button to register a double- or triple-click is fine for many people, but if you find yourself struggling to click the button fast enough, you can slow things down a bit. RELATED: Use a Triple-Click on Your iPhone for These Useful Shortcuts...

Using Microsoft Excel’s AutoFit feature, you can ensure that your content in your cells is always fully visible (without being cut off). Here’s how to use this option for specific rows and columns, and for your entire worksheets. There are mainly two scenarios where you’ll use this feature. The first one is when your cell’s content is cut off due to the cell’s limited size. In this situation, AutoFit will increase the cell size so that your full content is visible all the time....

RELATED: 5 Ways Windows 11’s Taskbar Is Worse Than Windows 10’s Windows 11’s refreshed design (first leaked ahead of its announcement in June 2021) shares some similarities to Windows 10X—namely, the centered taskbar. Microsoft might have axed its dual-screened operating system, but that doesn’t mean that its design language can’t survive on your PC. To center Windows 10’s taskbar icons, first, right-click on your taskbar and deselect “Lock the taskbar....

Apple’s macOS 10.14 Mojave offers “Dynamic Desktop” wallpapers that change based on the time of day. You can get something similar on Windows, either by using the standard background settings or by digging into the Task Scheduler. Set Up a Slideshow That Changes on a Schedule Windows 10 and Windows 7 both let you set up a slideshow and have it automatically change the picture after a period of time....

Want to convert a video or audio file to another format? VLC is all you need! It’s packed with useful features, including a quick and easy audio and video converter that’s just a few clicks away. How to Convert Media Files with VLC To start converting, open VLC and click Media > Convert/Save. Click “Add” to the right of the File Selection list on the File tab. Browse to the video or audio file you want to convert and open it....

The Android notification system is arguably one of the best things about the OS. But what if you could make it better? An app called Converbration can do just that by allowing you to completely customize notifications for your text messages based on a number of factors. RELATED: How to Use Android Oreo’s New Notification Channels for Ultra-Granular Notification Customization Converbration (horrible name, great app) hails itself as “intelligent notifications,” because it takes the notification system to a whole new level of customization (at least, for text messages)....

Why Do I Want Do Do This? If you arrived at this tutorial via search engine query there’s more than a few reasons that could have brought you here. Some people will be interested in taking advantage of the benefits of voice purchasing (it’s super handy to reorder something with a simple voice command when you’ve just run out of it). Let’s take a look at how to even use the voice ordering system in the first place so you can decide if you want it on, off, or locked down, and then we’ll dig into how to do just that....

Automatic downloads in iOS allow apps, as well as other items, to be updated automatically. This may seem handy, but they can also be problematic because they may use your mobile data without you realizing it. If you have metered data, you probably want to disable automatic downloads. We’ll show you how to disable (and enable) automatic downloads for updates on your iOS device, but also how to allow apps to update only Wi-Fi....

Microsoft Outlook’s Junk Email functionality works best when you train it by adding senders to the Safe Senders and Blocked Senders lists. Here’s how to export those lists and reimport them to a new machine or account. This functionality is only available in the Microsoft Outlook desktop app. If you’re using Outlook Online, then the Safe Senders and Blocked Senders data will sync up with the Outlook client. You can only import and export them through the desktop application....

Android N will bring a lot of new, innovative, and useful tools to Android, but if you don’t have a modern Nexus device, then it’s hard to say how long you’ll be waiting to get your hands on some of these new goodies. Fortunately, if you’re running a rooted device with the Xposed framework installed, getting many of N’s new features is only a quick download away. What Features Does N-ify Bring?...

Have you ever noticed people writing “following” in the comments of a Facebook post? They do this so they can get notifications when the post updates, but there’s a much easier and more efficient way to do this–and it’s built right into Facebook. Granted, writing the word “following” as your comment does achieve its purpose, but it also means that everyone else who wants to also follow a post’s progress usually ends up writing it too....

Setting Spotify Streaming Quality While Spotify will generally try to set the right streaming quality automatically, it’s possible for you to manually set this yourself. This forces Spotify to use a higher quality for certain devices, especially if you’re using Spotify with good audio equipment. To do this in the Spotify app on Windows or Mac, you’ll need to open the “Preferences” menu. To do this on Mac, click Spotify > Preferences from the menu bar....

Discord automatically shows your friends the games you’re playing. If a game uses Discord’s Rich Presence feature, your friends can even see where you are in-game. Here’s how you can deactivate this feature and increase your privacy while gaming. Open the Settings menu in Discord by clicking the cog in the bottom left next to your name and avatar. Navigate to the “Activity Privacy” tab on the left. Deactivate the “Display Current Activity As A Status Message” toggle, and Discord will stop sharing your gaming activity....

We’re all well acquainted with tiny text on our phones, tablets, and smart watches; if your eyesight is poor, then we feel your pain. With the Apple Watch, you can easily increase the text size and brightness to make it more readable. Using the Apple Watch already presents some unique challenges. The screen is very tiny so everything is miniaturized, which means text must be small enough to fit onto it....

If you’re still rocking an older iMac but want to breathe some new life into it, replacing the traditional hard drive with a solid-state drive is a great way to do that. Solid-state drives (SSDs) have a ton of advantages, including faster write and read speeds, which essentially means that your computer can boot up quicker and open applications much faster than before. There are still some things to be aware of with solid-state drives, but for the most part, they’re one of the best upgrades you can do to your computer by a long shot....

Install Windows 10’s Ubuntu-based Bash shell and you’ll have a complete Ubuntu environment that lets you install and run the same applications you could run on an Ubuntu-based Linux system. Just like on Ubuntu, though, you’ll need the apt-get command to install and update software. Note that Windows 10’s Linux subsystem doesn’t officially support graphical applications or server software (though it is possible to run some graphical applications, unofficially). Officially, it’s intended for Linux terminal applications and other command-line utilities developers might want....

The Nest Thermostat lets you adjust your home’s temperature right from your smartphone, but if you don’t want other people to mess around with it, here’s how to lock your Nest Thermostat with a passcode. RELATED: How to Install and Set Up the Nest Thermostat Just like with your smartphone, you most likely want a passcode enabled so that other people can’t get access to your apps and other information....

Mapping a network drive to a shared folder from Windows’ graphic interface isn’t hard. But if you already know the network path for the shared folder, you can map drives a lot quicker using the Command Prompt. Mapping a drive to a network share assigns that share a drive letter so that it’s easier to work with. We’ll be using the net use command in Command Prompt to map a network drive for this tutorial....