AMBER and emergency alerts occur when there’s a child abduction or there’s an important event such as a severe weather alert (tornado warning) that local governments needs to make people aware of. While we don’t recommend disabling these permanently, you might need to temporarily. The thing about these alerts are that they occur whether you have your phone on silent or not, and though they occur infrequently, when they do happen, it can be startling and possibly disturb you during an important meeting or similar function....

When you insert a removable device such as a CD, DVD, or memory card into your computer, you’ll often see Windows’ “AutoPlay” popup. AutoPlay detects the kind of disc or media you have inserted and automatically takes whatever action you request. But if you find the feature annoying, you can disable AutoPlay very simply in Windows 10. Enable or Disable AutoPlay in Settings Open the “Settings” app, and click on the “Devices” icon....

When you visit a webpage in a browser, all the resources, such as images, style sheets, and Javascript files, are downloaded and stored in the browser’s cache. This allows webpages you’ve already visited to load more quickly because the browser doesn’t have to download the resources again. Update: Google removed this experimental flag from Chrome. If you try to visit a web page while you’re offline, Chrome may automatically load cached versions of some web pages—but there’s no way to control this....

We’ve all been in a situation where one hand or the other simply isn’t available for responding to a text message, and with the ever-increasing size of Android phones, that’s starting to become more of an issue. The good news is that Google Keyboard now has a much-needed feature: One-Handed Mode. One-Handed Mode basically takes the normal keyboard, shrinks it down, and forces it over to one side or the other....

The Schlage Connect smart lock includes a built-in alarm system that can deter any potential thieves from breaking into your house through the front door. Here’s how to enable it. RELATED: How to Install and Set Up the Schlage Connect Smart Lock Before we continue, it’s important to know that there are two different models of the Schlage Connect: the BE468 and the BE469. The former is discontinued, and the latter is the newest, updated model....

Making TWRP backups is a must if you’re going to be rooting and tweaking Android. But if your phone is encrypted, you may have some issues with your PIN or password lock after restoring from a backup. Here’s what’s going on. RELATED: How to Back Up and Restore Your Android Phone with TWRP If the backup you’re restoring uses the same PIN as your current system, everything should go swimmingly....

The Safari web browser likes showing the websites you frequently visit when you open it. On an iPhone or iPad, it shows “frequently visited sites.” On a Mac, it shows your “top sites.” You can disable this to prevent your browser from advertising the websites you frequently visit. This feature is customizable. You’re free to remove any websites you don’t want appearing here and continue using it. On iOS, you can disable it entirely....

If you find the battery charge percentage in the corner of your iPad or iPhone screen distracting, it can be turned off easily. Also, on iPads and certain iPhones, you can turn the percentage back on at any time. Here’s how. It’s great to keep an eye on exactly how much battery life your device has left. On iPads and iPhones with home buttons (those that don’t have notches), you can see a numerical battery percentage in the upper-right corner of the screen....

A smart thermostat is a great accessory to have, not only to be able to adjust your home’s temperature from your phone, but to also save money on your utility costs. Here’s how to install and set up the Nest Learning Thermostat in your own home. Warning: This is a project for a confident DIYer. There’s no shame in getting someone else to do the actual wiring for you if you lack the skill or knowledge to do so....

Spotify is one of our favorite music streaming services and one thing you might not know is that to use it, you don’t need to download an app: you can use it straight from your web browser. Spotify’s Web Player works in Google Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera. The only notable absence is Safari. To use it in one of the other browsers, head to play.Spotify.com and sign in. If you don’t already have a Spotify account, you can sign up for free; the free plan has never been better....

Microsoft Edge, the new replacement for Internet Explorer, lets you take notes, write, doodle, and highlight directly on web pages as a note. Afterwards, you can save or share the web note. In this article we’ll show you how to take notes in Microsoft Edge. How to Use Markup Tools Open Start Menu and click on “Microsoft Edge”. Tap or click “Make a web note” at the top right corner to start adding to the webpage you’re on....

For years, Google has used your home or work address to tell you how long your commute will be, find restaurants nearby, and show you local weather. Usually, you shouldn’t have to tweak this but if you move, or if Google guesses your address incorrectly, you can change it. Here’s how. Google remembers two key addresses for you: home and work. If you’ve never set these, Google will try to guess the locations based on where you go and how often you’re there (if you have given Google permission to track your location, of course)....

Thanks to Google’s big Google+ push a few years ago, many YouTube accounts are connected with the real name of their owner. Punch your name into Google, and one of the first results could be your YouTube account, complete with a feed containing all the videos you’ve viewed and channels you’ve subscribed to over the past few years. Thankfully, you can still control what the rest of the world sees by correctly configuring the level of your privacy inside your YouTube account settings....

Trying to describe where you are and how to get you to a friend or family member? You can quickly and easily send your location to someone when viewing a conversation between you and that person in Messages on your Apple Watch. Send your location through Messages by opening a text message notification you receive on your watch or by pressing the digital crown to access the Home screen and tapping on the “Messages” app icon....

The Roku doesn’t have a power button, and there’s no obvious way to restart it in the user interface. Annoying, right? It’s a problem when things crash, yes, but also because things like updates and adding private channels are largely triggered by rebooting the system. Isn’t there any way to force the thing to restart, without unplugging the power and plugging it back in? As it turns out, yes, though in the menu it’s a little bit buried....

You probably have some text that you type often in your Word documents, such as addresses. Instead of retyping this text every time you need it, you can put this common text into one Word document and reference it in other documents–it’ll even automatically update in all your documents if you change it. Say you want to put your address in the footer of your documents, but the address changes from time to time....

Most Mac applications use the operating system’s spell check feature, and share the same personal dictionary. So if you add a custom word to your dictionary in one application, other Mac apps won’t detect it as a typo in the future. But there’s no obvious way to remove a word from the dictionary if you accidentally add one. Some Mac applications–such as Microsoft Word and other Microsoft Office apps–use their own dictionary, so this doesn’t apply to them....

If you occasionally restart your Android device, it clears its memory and speeds things up. It can also be a quick fix for minor problems, like crashing apps. Here’s how to restart your Android smartphone or tablet to fix common issues. Perform a Standard Restart A “standard restart” means you reboot your device with the built-in software options. Press the power button on your device (it’s usually on the top or right side but can also be on the left) for a few seconds to launch the onscreen power menu....

Linux is a great operating system, but its software catalog can be lacking. If there’s a Windows game or other app you just can’t do without, you can use Wine to run it right on your Ubuntu desktop. Wine is a work in progress, so it won’t run every application perfectly — in fact, some applications may not run at all — but it’s improving all the time. This beginner’s guide will get you up and running with Wine....

I figured he can’t be the only person confused by this, so I’m writing it up here for everybody. Hopefully this will help somebody! How to Search a Date Range with the Keyboard If you are a keyboard junkie, you can easily select a date range by using the following syntax in the search box in any folder: The key is the two periods between the dates, which tells the search engine to use it as a range....