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Wouldn’t it be great if the mere movement of your smartphone from one location to another could trigger events like thermostat adjustments, notifications, or other automated responses? ? With a little GPS magic and some IFTTT recipes it can. Read on as we show you how. What Is Geofencing and IFTTT? To understand just how techno-magic the tricks we’re about to outline are, it helps to understand what exactly geofencing and IFTTT are....

The ribbon in Microsoft Office applications provides access to most major commands and options, but there is another feature that can be very useful if you take the time to customize it. The Quick Access Toolbar provides one-click access to any commands added to it. To customize the Quick Access Toolbar in a Microsoft Office application such as Word, click the down arrow on the right side of the Quick Access Toolbar and select “More Commands” from the drop-down menu....

You crack open the box for your new Galaxy S7, S6, or Note 5 and start setting that bad boy up. About three taps in, you realize something: this thing is making noise every time you touch it. If that drives you as crazy as it does me, we have good news: it’s easy to disable not only the touch sounds, but also the lock screen and charging sounds....

Starting with Marshmallow, Google included a new hidden settings menu with experimental features. This menu, called the System UI Tuner, is a great way to access tools that may not be quite ready to be called “stable,” but are an excellent way to get eyes on possible upcoming features. It’s worth noting that third-party manufacturers are free to disable this menu on their custom builds of Android, so it may not be available on your particular device....

Knowing when and where it’s going to rain is one of the big reasons people bother with weather apps. Instead of “it will rain sometime today,” why not get weather forecasts more like “heavy rain starting in five minutes, and lasting for 45 minutes?” Weather apps and websites are a dime a dozen. Most of them tell you whether it’ll be sunny, cloudy, or rainy on any given day. But Dark Sky offers something a bit different....

Google Maps is great for getting directions, but if you’re off-road and can’t find your way home, you’ll need to improvise. Thankfully, it’s possible to use Google Maps to find your direction of travel if you get lost. Here’s how. This will only work if your Android or iPhone device has a magnetometer that can find your direction of travel using the Earth’s magnetic field. Most (if not all) modern Android devices have a magnetometer installed, as do all recent iPhones....

Windows 10 and 8 include a volume display that appears at the top left corner of the screen whenever you adjust the volume using a shortcut key. Microsoft offers no built-in way to disable it, but there is a way to hide it. This on-screen display (OSD) is particularly bothersome if you’re using media center software with a built-in volume display. Windows Barely Lets You Customize This Feature There are only a few settings in Windows 10 for controlling the volume OSD feature, and none of them let you disable it....

If you have the right hardware, Windows 10 lets you unlock your computer with nothing but a smile. However, Microsoft’s facial recognition isn’t always spot-on. Here’s how to help Windows recognize you better. RELATED: How to Log In to Your PC With Your Fingerprint or Other Device Using Windows Hello Before you go through these steps, you’ll need to have Windows Hello with facial recognition enabled. If you haven’t set this up, you can check out our guide here....

Netgear’s Arlo Pro wireless security cameras can last anywhere from 3-6 months on a single charge, but there are a lot of factors that can affect the battery life. Here’s how to stretch it out as much as possible. RELATED: How to Set Up the Netgear Arlo Pro Camera System Before we dive deep into the different tricks that you can do to save on battery life, keep in mind that you can keep your Arlo Pro cameras plugged into power 24/7....

How to Download and Install Safari Extensions on Mac Mac users who are running Safari 12.0 and higher (running on macOS Mojave and above), have to use the App Store method for installing Safari extensions. Here, you first need to download the extension as an app, then enable the extension before you can start using it. First, make sure you’re running the latest version of macOS. RELATED: How to Update Your Mac and Keep Apps Up to Date...

Spotify allows other users to see the playlists you create. If you’d like to keep your playlists hidden, you’ll have to make each playlist private in your account settings. We’ll show you how to do that from your desktop and mobile phone. Later, you can make your playlists public again by choosing an option, if you want. RELATED: How to Share Your Spotify Playlists with Friends (or the World)...

Got a big party coming up, but don’t want to leave the DJ duties to just one person? Thanks to Spotify’s collaborative playlist feature, you can be sure that no matter what taste in music might suit the mood best, everyone will get their say. To start a collaborative playlist, begin by opening up your Spotify client on a PC, Mac, or a compatible mobile device. Next, you can either create an entirely new playlist from scratch, or take an existing playlist and add more people to the fray....

That feeling you get when you close the wrong browser tab by accident is no fun. Fortunately, Safari for iOS, like most modern browsers, provides a way to recover from your little mishap. You just have to know where to look. RELATED: How to Restore Recently Closed Tabs in Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge Most web browsers allow you to open a recently closed tab, either through a keyboard shortcut or menu selection....

Windows 10’s Start menu — or Start screen, in tablet mode — allows you to “pin” more than just apps. You can pin folders, websites, settings shortcuts, email folder, notes, and contacts. This gives you quick access to stuff, right in the Start menu. Of course, you can pin applications to the Start menu by opening the “All apps” view, right-clicking an app, and selecting “Pin to Start”. Folders, Drives, Libraries, Network Locations, and HomeGroup Folders RELATED: 10 Ways to Customize the Windows 10 Start Menu...

Your Apple TV, by default, goes to sleep fairly quickly when not in use. That’s great for power saving but not so great if you like to keep it on. Let’s take a look at how to extend how long it stays awake or disable sleep mode altogether. Note: This tutorial applies to the 2015 4th-generation Apple TV hardware update and the subsequent updates running tvOS. Why Do I Want To Do This?...

One of the improvements implemented in iOS 9 was a new style touch keyboard that easily allows users to tell the difference between upper and lower-case mode. If you prefer the old style touch keyboard however, here is how to re-enable it. Of all the improvements Apple made to iOS from version 8 to version 9 is the ability to see the lower-case letters on the keyboard when it is in lower-case mode....

In VLC, you can use the rotation filter to rotate your video by various degrees. Then, optionally, you can save the rotated version of your video as an independent file on your computer. RELATED: How to Rotate a Video 90 Degrees on Windows Rotate a Video Only While Watching It To rotate your video only while playing it and not applying the changes to the video file, then use the steps in this section....

Windows 10’s Bash shell doesn’t officially support graphical Linux desktop applications. Microsoft says this feature is designed only for developers who want to run Linux terminal utilities. But the underlying “Windows Subsystem for Linux” is more powerful than Microsoft lets on. It is possible to run graphical Linux applications in Windows 10, but bear in mind that it isn’t officially supported. Not every piece of Linux software works, and graphical applications are even more complex and less tested....

Chances are, you have some old gadgets lying around your house you no longer use. Why not get some money for them? Craigslist is one of the best places to sell your unused junk, and you can pretty much list anything you want on there. When it comes to selling your gadgets for the best price possible, though, there are a few things to keep in mind. Depending on where you live, a certain item may or may not be in high demand....

Microsoft Outlook is a great platform for setting calendar appointments with reminders, but the default reminders in the list might not work for everybody, especially if you want to schedule a reminder for a few months in advance. Here’s how to do it. Note: Thanks to reader John for writing in, and our own Scott @ TinyHacker for the solution. Enabling Non-Standard Reminders for a Single Item If you just want to change the reminder time for a single item, you can highlight the reminder and type in anything you want: 2 minutes, 4 months, etc....