When you configure a proxy server for a Wi-Fi network, your iPhone or iPad will use it when accessing that network. This is sometimes required to access the Internet on a business or school network, for example. Your network traffic will be sent through the proxy you configure. RELATED: What’s the Difference Between a VPN and a Proxy? Generally, you’ll use a proxy if your school or work provides it to you....

While there haven’t been a ton of revolutionary improvements to the Windows Weather app since its revamp in Windows 8, it’s still a popular way for people to quickly check in with the weather from their desktop. Here’s how to configure your app’s settings, manage your favorite’s list, and set up the live tile. Set Your Location To add your location to the Windows 10 Weather app, start by finding the tile in your Start menu, and opening up the program....

If you have a handful of smarthome accessories that you want to control all at once, you can instantly make changes to a handful of things in your house using “Routines” in the SmartThings app with just the press of a button. RELATED: How to Set Up the SmartThings Home Monitoring Kit SmartThings is a smarthome product line made by Samsung that lets you connect not only SmartThings-branded and third-party devices to your setup, allowing you to control all of them from within the SmartThings app....

When you press and hold the power button on your Android device, the power menu appears. Unfortunately, on a lot of devices, it only has one option: Power Off. It’d be a lot more useful to have some other options there–like reboot, reboot into recovery, or even an option to take a screenshot. And thanks to a little tweak called NeoPowerMenu, it’s totally possible. NeoPowerMenu is an Xposed module that allows you to both customize the power menu’s visual appearance and add a lot more options....

The touchscreen feature, available on certain Windows 11 PCs, is certainly a great feature, but it’s also a great way of collecting a large number of fingerprints on your screen. Tired of cleaning your screen? Disable touchscreen. Disable (or Enable) Touchscreen Using Device Manager You can disable touchscreen on Windows 11 by using Device Manager. To get started, click the Windows Search icon in the taskbar, type “Device Manager” in the Search bar, and then click Device Manager from the search results....

When you install Word, you are asked to enter your name and initials. This user information is stored in Word and you can automatically insert this information into your documents, such as into the return address of an envelope. We showed you how to set the user information in Word (after installation), which includes your name, initials, and address. You can use fields to insert this information into a document and have it automatically update when you update the user information....

The Mail app in Windows 10 is surprisingly robust, supporting multiple accounts and multiple services like Outlook, Gmail, Exchange, and of course POP3 and IMAP. Assuming you’ve got multiple accounts set up, you can also create a live tile on your Start menu for each account. You can even create separate live tiles for folders you create in the app. Here’s how to do it. RELATED: How to Set Up and Customize Email Accounts in Windows 10...

When you leave for work, you likely turn down your thermostat before you head out the door to save energy. But the Nest Thermostat can automatically do that for you, by detecting when you’re away and when you come home. RELATED: How to Install and Set Up the Nest Thermostat With a feature called Home/Away Assist, the Nest Thermostat can use its built-in sensor, as well as the GPS location from your phone, to automatically determine whether you’re home or away....

When you take a screenshots in Windows 10 with the Windows+PrtScn shortcut, it automatically saves those pictures by naming them “Screenshot (1),” “Screenshot (2),” and so on. Even if you delete screenshots, that counter just keeps going up. You can use a quick Registry hack to reset that counter whenever you want. RELATED: How to Screenshot on Windows 10 We’ve covered how to take screenshots in Windows 10 using various shortcuts already....

QR (Quick Response) codes are found in many places, such as advertisements, billboards, business windows, and on products. But you don’t necessarily need a separate app to scan them—if you use Google Chrome on your iPhone, it has a QR code scanner built-in. RELATED: QR Codes Explained: Why You See Those Square Barcodes Everywhere QR codes were first developed in 1994 to help track parts in the manufacturing of vehicles....

Virtual machines are isolated containers, so the guest operating system in the virtual machine doesn’t have access to your computer’s file system. You’ll have to set up shared folders in a program like VirtualBox or VMware to share files. By default, virtual machines do not have access to files on the host computer or on other virtual machines. If you want to provide that access, you must set up shared folders in your virtual machine app....

Beginning with the October 2020 update, Windows 10 can now show your Microsoft Edge browser tabs as separate entries with thumbnails in the Alt+Tab switcher. By default, it shows the five most recent tabs. Here’s how you can show all of them. You’ll have to use Microsoft Edge if you want browser tabs in your Alt+Tab switcher. As of October 2020, this doesn’t work in Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox....

Windows includes various visual effects and animations that make using the operating system feel a little more friendly. A good example of this is the animation that fades or slides menus into view a few hundred milliseconds after you click them. Adjusting that delay, though, can make using your PC feel a little snappier. RELATED: Speed Up Any PC, Smartphone, or Tablet By Disabling Animations Windows lets you disable a number of visual effects and doing so can help make your computer feel more responsive....

How the Apple Watch Heart Rate Sensor Works The Apple Watch uses green LEDs paired with photodiodes to track the blood flow through your wrist. Blood appears red because it reflects red light and absorbs green light (that’s physics for you!). So, by measuring how much green light is absorbed a few hundred times per second, your Apple Watch can track when your heart is beating. It can detect a heart rate range of between 30 and 210 beats per minute....

If you use a Mac laptop to surf, you’ve probably noticed that lightly swiping two fingers left or right on the trackpad causes your web browser to go forward and back a page. For some, this is a great. For others, it happens accidentally more often than it happens on purpose, which can be annoying. Swiping to go back and forward does take some getting used to, and you need to be aware that this feature exists, or you’re likely to quickly become frustrated....

If you’re sick of having to find and fumble with the light switch every time you enter a dark room, you can use SmartThings to automate that process and have the lights turn on automatically when you enter. RELATED: How to Set Up the SmartThings Home Monitoring Kit There are a couple of ways you can do this, and it depends what smarthome products you have in your arsenal. To trigger the automation for the lights, you can either use a SmartThings open/close sensor or a SmartThings motion sensor....

The days of scrambling around in Gmail with a bunch of different plugins for four different browsers is over, because Google has finally taken the veil off their brand new, browser-based Google Hangouts platform. The messaging app has proved wildly popular with the professional set, offering a quick and simple way to get in touch with all your email contacts in an instant. But now that Hangouts has its own browser window, there a few new tips, tricks, and settings you should know about before you dive in....

The thing I love about this application is how simple it is to mount an ISO… you just double-click it, and it’s mounted. To add an extra virtual drive, go to your start menu, and launch Virtual CloneDrive from there. Change the dropdown for the number of drives to the number that you want. When you double-click on an ISO image, it will always mount it in the first drive....

Imagine you go on your dream European vacation and all your things are stolen after your hotel room is burgled or your car is broken into. Clothes and toothbrushes are easy to replace, but your devices are a potential treasure trove for thieves to exploit. Unfortunately, this story is all too real–in fact, it happened to our editor just last week. RELATED: What’s the Best Way to Back Up My Computer?...

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ are officially official, and there’s a lot to take in. They seem to be mostly incremental updates over their predecessors, so the question on a lot of people’s minds: is it worth upgrading if you already have the S8? The Design Is More of the Same, But Better You know the old saying—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Well that’s exactly what’s going on here....