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  • HTG Explains: What Is Open-Source Software and Why You Should Care

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Geeks often describe programs as being “open source” or “free software.” If you’re wondering exactly what these terms mean and why they matter, read on. (No, “free software” doesn’t just mean that you can download it for free.) Whether a program is open-source or not doesn’t just matter to developers, it ultimately matters for users, too. Open-source software licenses give users freedoms they would not otherwise have. Image Credit: Quinn Dombrowski on Flickr How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder? Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It

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  • Become a Vi Master by Learning These 30+ Key Bindings

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Vi is a powerful text editor included on most Linux systems. Many people swear by vi and find it faster than any other editor once they’ve learned its key bindings. You can even use vi key bindings in Bash. We’ve already covered getting started with vi for beginners. If you haven’t used vi in a while, you might want to give that post a look to get a refresher on the basics. How To Customize Your Wallpaper with Google Image Searches, RSS Feeds, and More 47 Keyboard Shortcuts That Work in All Web Browsers How To Hide Passwords in an Encrypted Drive Even the FBI Can’t Get Into

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  • Use Classic Shell to Get a Classic Start Menu & Explorer Toolbar in Windows 8

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Classic Shell is an open-source utility that brings classic Windows features to newer versions of Windows. It offers the most classic Start menu for Windows 8 yet, and it lets you avoid the ribbon with a Windows Explorer toolbar. We’ve also written about getting a Windows 7-style Start button with ViStart and a Metro-style Start menu with Start 8. Or, if you’re brave, dive into the deep end and try living without the Start button for a while. How to Stress Test the Hard Drives in Your PC or Server How To Customize Your Android Lock Screen with WidgetLocker The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit

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  • How to Forward Ports to a Virtual Machine and Use It as a Server

    - by Chris Hoffman
    VirtualBox and VMware both create virtual machines with the NAT network type by default. If you want to run server software inside a virtual machine, you’ll need to change its network type or forward ports through the virtual NAT. Virtual machines don’t normally need to be reachable from outside the virtual machine, so the default is fine for most people. It actually provides some security, as it isolates the virtual machine from incoming connections. How To Switch Webmail Providers Without Losing All Your Email How To Force Windows Applications to Use a Specific CPU HTG Explains: Is UPnP a Security Risk?

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  • How to Use Windows 8's Storage Spaces to Mirror & Combine Drives

    - by Chris Hoffman
    “Storage Spaces” is a new feature in Windows 8 that can combine multiple hard drives into a single virtual drive. It can mirror data across multiple drives for redundancy or combine multiple physical drives into a single pool of storage. You can even create pools of storage larger than the amount of physical storage space you have available. When the physical storage fills up, you can plug in another drive and take advantage of it with no additional configuration required. Storage Spaces is similar to RAID or LVM on Linux. The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos

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  • How to Recover From a Virus Infection: 3 Things You Need to Do

    - by Chris Hoffman
    If your computer becomes infected with a virus or another piece of malware, removing the malware from your computer is only the first step. There’s more you need to do to ensure you’re secure. Note that not every antivirus alert is an actual infection. If your antivirus program catches a virus before it ever gets a chance to run on your computer, you’re safe. If it catches the malware later, you have a bigger problem. Change Your Passwords You’ve probably used your computer to log into your email, online banking websites, and other important accounts. Assuming you had malware on your computer, the malware could have logged your passwords and uploaded them to a malicious third party. With just your email account, the third party could reset your passwords on other websites and gain access to almost any of your online accounts. To prevent this, you’ll want to change the passwords for your important accounts — email, online banking, and whatever other important accounts you’ve logged into from the infected computer. You should probably use another computer that you know is clean to change the passwords, just to be safe. When changing your passwords, consider using a password manager to keep track of strong, unique passwords and two-factor authentication to prevent people from logging into your important accounts even if they know your password. This will help protect you in the future. Ensure the Malware Is Actually Removed Once malware gets access to your computer and starts running, it has the ability to do many more nasty things to your computer. For example, some malware may install rootkit software and attempt to hide itself from the system. Many types of Trojans also “open the floodgates” after they’re running, downloading many different types of malware from malicious web servers to the local system. In other words, if your computer was infected, you’ll want to take extra precautions. You shouldn’t assume it’s clean just because your antivirus removed what it found. It’s probably a good idea to scan your computer with multiple antivirus products to ensure maximum detection. You may also want to run a bootable antivirus program, which runs outside of Windows. Such bootable antivirus programs will be able to detect rootkits that hide themselves from Windows and even the software running within Windows. avast! offers the ability to quickly create a bootable CD or USB drive for scanning, as do many other antivirus programs. You may also want to reinstall Windows (or use the Refresh feature on Windows 8) to get your computer back to a clean state. This is more time-consuming, especially if you don’t have good backups and can’t get back up and running quickly, but this is the only way you can have 100% confidence that your Windows system isn’t infected. It’s all a matter of how paranoid you want to be. Figure Out How the Malware Arrived If your computer became infected, the malware must have arrived somehow. You’ll want to examine your computer’s security and your habits to prevent more malware from slipping through in the same way. Windows is complex. For example, there are over 50 different types of potentially dangerous file extensions that can contain malware to keep track of. We’ve tried to cover many of the most important security practices you should be following, but here are some of the more important questions to ask: Are you using an antivirus? – If you don’t have an antivirus installed, you should. If you have Microsoft Security Essentials (known as Windows Defender on Windows 8), you may want to switch to a different antivirus like the free version of avast!. Microsoft’s antivirus product has been doing very poorly in tests. Do you have Java installed? – Java is a huge source of security problems. The majority of computers on the Internet have an out-of-date, vulnerable version of Java installed, which would allow malicious websites to install malware on your computer. If you have Java installed, uninstall it. If you actually need Java for something (like Minecraft), at least disable the Java browser plugin. If you’re not sure whether you need Java, you probably don’t. Are any browser plugins out-of-date? – Visit Mozilla’s Plugin Check website (yes, it also works in other browsers, not just Firefox) and see if you have any critically vulnerable plugins installed. If you do, ensure you update them — or uninstall them. You probably don’t need older plugins like QuickTime or RealPlayer installed on your computer, although Flash is still widely used. Are your web browser and operating system set to automatically update? – You should be installing updates for Windows via Windows Update when they appear. Modern web browsers are set to automatically update, so they should be fine — unless you went out of your way to disable automatic updates. Using out-of-date web browsers and Windows versions is dangerous. Are you being careful about what you run? – Watch out when downloading software to ensure you don’t accidentally click sketchy advertisements and download harmful software. Avoid pirated software that may be full of malware. Don’t run programs from email attachments. Be careful about what you run and where you get it from in general. If you can’t figure out how the malware arrived because everything looks okay, there’s not much more you can do. Just try to follow proper security practices. You may also want to keep an extra-close eye on your credit card statement for a while if you did any online-shopping recently. As so much malware is now related to organized crime, credit card numbers are a popular target.     

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  • How to Quickly Check If Your Computer Can Run a PC Game

    - by Chris Hoffman
    PC gaming isn’t quite as simple as console gaming. If you have a laptop with weak graphics hardware or an older PC, it’s important to check whether your computer can support a game before you spend your hard-earned cash. Gamers don’t have to upgrade their hardware as often as they used to. Even a gaming PC built years ago should be able to handle the newest games just fine. Laptops not build for gaming and older PCs are a different matter.    

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  • Using T4 to generate Configuration classes

    - by Justin Hoffman
    I wanted to try to use T4 to read a web.config and generate all of the appSettings and connectionStrings as properties of a class.  I elected in this template only to output appSettings and connectionStrings but you can see it would be easily adapted for app specific settings, bindings etc.  This allows for quick access to config values as well as removing the potential for typo's when accessing values from the ConfigurationManager. One caveat: a developer would need to remember to run the .tt file after adding an entry to the web.config.  However, one would quickly notice when trying to access the property from the generated class (it wouldn't be there).  Additionally, there are other options as noted here. The first step was to create the .tt file.  Note that this is a basic example, it could be extended even further I'm sure.  In this example I just manually input the path to the web.config file. <#@ template debug="false" hostspecific="true" language="C#" #><#@ output extension=".cs" #><#@ assembly Name="System.Configuration" #><#@ assembly name="System.Xml" #><#@ assembly name="System.Xml.Linq" #><#@ assembly name="System.Net" #><#@ assembly name="System" #><#@ import namespace="System.Configuration" #><#@ import namespace="System.Xml" #><#@ import namespace="System.Net" #><#@ import namespace="Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating" #><#@ import namespace="System.Xml.Linq" #>using System;using System.Configuration;using System.Xml;using System.Xml.Linq;using System.Linq;namespace MyProject.Web { public partial class Configurator { <# var xDocument = XDocument.Load(@"G:\MySolution\MyProject\Web.config"); var results = xDocument.Descendants("appSettings"); const string key = "key"; const string name = "name"; foreach (var xElement in results.Descendants()) {#> public string <#= xElement.Attribute(key).Value#>{get {return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[<#= string.Format("{0}{1}{2}","\"" , xElement.Attribute(key).Value, "\"")#>];}} <#}#> <# var connectionStrings = xDocument.Descendants("connectionStrings"); foreach(var connString in connectionStrings.Descendants()) {#> public string <#= connString.Attribute(name).Value#>{get {return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[<#= string.Format("{0}{1}{2}","\"" , connString.Attribute(name).Value, "\"")#>].ConnectionString;}} <#} #> }} The resulting .cs file: using System;using System.Configuration;using System.Xml;using System.Xml.Linq;using System.Linq;namespace MyProject.Web { public partial class Configurator { public string ClientValidationEnabled{get {return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ClientValidationEnabled"];}} public string UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled{get {return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled"];}} public string ServiceUri{get {return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ServiceUri"];}} public string TestConnection{get {return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["TestConnection"].ConnectionString;}} public string SecondTestConnection{get {return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["SecondTestConnection"].ConnectionString;}} }} Next, I extended the partial class for easy access to the Configuration. However, you could just use the generated class file itself. using System;using System.Linq;using System.Xml.Linq;namespace MyProject.Web{ public partial class Configurator { private static readonly Configurator Instance = new Configurator(); public static Configurator For { get { return Instance; } } }} Finally, in my example, I used the Configurator class like so: [TestMethod] public void Test_Web_Config() { var result = Configurator.For.ServiceUri; Assert.AreEqual(result, "http://localhost:30237/Service1/"); }

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  • HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    If you’ve ever purchased a computer with a hard disk capacity of 500 GB and opened Windows Explorer only to find that its capacity looked more like 440 GB, you may be wondering where all those gigabytes went. There are several reasons Windows could display the wrong amount of available space, from invisible shadow files, formatting overhead, and hidden recovery partitions to misleading (though technically accurate) storage capacities advertised by hard drive manufacturers. Image Credit: Norlando Pobre HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? Java is Insecure and Awful, It’s Time to Disable It, and Here’s How What Are the Windows A: and B: Drives Used For?

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  • How to Comment Out and Uncomment Lines in a Configuration File

    - by Chris Hoffman
    You may have seen instructions that tell you to “uncomment” or “comment out” lines in a configuration or source code file. This is a simple process, but may not be self-explanatory to people that don’t understand the file’s structure. The interpreter ignores lines marked as comments, which are only to aid humans in understanding the file. Because of this, comments can be used to disable or enable configuration options in configuration files. How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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  • HTG Explains: What is the Windows Page File and Should You Disable It?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Windows uses a page file to store data that can’t be held by your computer’s random-access memory when it fills up. While you can tweak the page file settings, Windows can manage the page file fine on its own. The Windows page file is somewhat misunderstood. People see it as the cause of slowdowns because it’s slower to use the page file than your computer’s RAM, but having a page file is better than not having one. Image Credit: Blake Patterson on Flickr HTG Explains: What is the Windows Page File and Should You Disable It? How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference How To Troubleshoot Internet Connection Problems

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  • Vector with Constant-Time Remove - still a Vector?

    - by Darrel Hoffman
    One of the drawbacks of most common implementations of the Vector class (or ArrayList, etc. Basically any array-backed expandable list class) is that their remove() operation generally operates in linear time - if you remove an element, you must shift all elements after it one space back to keep the data contiguous. But what if you're using a Vector just to be a list-of-things, where the order of the things is irrelevant? In this case removal can be accomplished in a few simple steps: Swap element to be removed with the last element in the array Reduce size field by 1. (No need to re-allocate the array, as the deleted item is now beyond the size field and thus not "in" the list any more. The next add() will just overwrite it.) (optional) Delete last element to free up its memory. (Not needed in garbage-collected languages.) This is clearly now a constant-time operation, since only performs a single swap regardless of size. The downside is of course that it changes the order of the data, but if you don't care about the order, that's not a problem. Could this still be called a Vector? Or is it something different? It has some things in common with "Set" classes in that the order is irrelevant, but unlike a Set it can store duplicate values. (Also most Set classes I know of are backed by a tree or hash map rather than an array.) It also bears some similarity to Heap classes, although without the log(N) percolate steps since we don't care about the order.

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  • HTG Explains: Why Does Rebooting a Computer Fix So Many Problems?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Ask a geek how to fix a problem you’ve having with your Windows computer and they’ll likely ask “Have you tried rebooting it?” This seems like a flippant response, but rebooting a computer can actually solve many problems. So what’s going on here? Why does resetting a device or restarting a program fix so many problems? And why don’t geeks try to identify and fix problems rather than use the blunt hammer of “reset it”? This Isn’t Just About Windows Bear in mind that this soltion isn’t just limited to Windows computers, but applies to all types of computing devices. You’ll find the advice “try resetting it” applied to wireless routers, iPads, Android phones, and more. This same advice even applies to software — is Firefox acting slow and consuming a lot of memory? Try closing it and reopening it! Some Problems Require a Restart To illustrate why rebooting can fix so many problems, let’s take a look at the ultimate software problem a Windows computer can face: Windows halts, showing a blue screen of death. The blue screen was caused by a low-level error, likely a problem with a hardware driver or a hardware malfunction. Windows reaches a state where it doesn’t know how to recover, so it halts, shows a blue-screen of death, gathers information about the problem, and automatically restarts the computer for you . This restart fixes the blue screen of death. Windows has gotten better at dealing with errors — for example, if your graphics driver crashes, Windows XP would have frozen. In Windows Vista and newer versions of Windows, the Windows desktop will lose its fancy graphical effects for a few moments before regaining them. Behind the scenes, Windows is restarting the malfunctioning graphics driver. But why doesn’t Windows simply fix the problem rather than restarting the driver or the computer itself?  Well, because it can’t — the code has encountered a problem and stopped working completely, so there’s no way for it to continue. By restarting, the code can start from square one and hopefully it won’t encounter the same problem again. Examples of Restarting Fixing Problems While certain problems require a complete restart because the operating system or a hardware driver has stopped working, not every problem does. Some problems may be fixable without a restart, though a restart may be the easiest option. Windows is Slow: Let’s say Windows is running very slowly. It’s possible that a misbehaving program is using 99% CPU and draining the computer’s resources. A geek could head to the task manager and look around, hoping to locate the misbehaving process an end it. If an average user encountered this same problem, they could simply reboot their computer to fix it rather than dig through their running processes. Firefox or Another Program is Using Too Much Memory: In the past, Firefox has been the poster child for memory leaks on average PCs. Over time, Firefox would often consume more and more memory, getting larger and larger and slowing down. Closing Firefox will cause it to relinquish all of its memory. When it starts again, it will start from a clean state without any leaked memory. This doesn’t just apply to Firefox, but applies to any software with memory leaks. Internet or Wi-Fi Network Problems: If you have a problem with your Wi-Fi or Internet connection, the software on your router or modem may have encountered a problem. Resetting the router — just by unplugging it from its power socket and then plugging it back in — is a common solution for connection problems. In all cases, a restart wipes away the current state of the software . Any code that’s stuck in a misbehaving state will be swept away, too. When you restart, the computer or device will bring the system up from scratch, restarting all the software from square one so it will work just as well as it was working before. “Soft Resets” vs. “Hard Resets” In the mobile device world, there are two types of “resets” you can perform. A “soft reset” is simply restarting a device normally — turning it off and then on again. A “hard reset” is resetting its software state back to its factory default state. When you think about it, both types of resets fix problems for a similar reason. For example, let’s say your Windows computer refuses to boot or becomes completely infected with malware. Simply restarting the computer won’t fix the problem, as the problem is with the files on the computer’s hard drive — it has corrupted files or malware that loads at startup on its hard drive. However, reinstalling Windows (performing a “Refresh or Reset your PC” operation in Windows 8 terms) will wipe away everything on the computer’s hard drive, restoring it to its formerly clean state. This is simpler than looking through the computer’s hard drive, trying to identify the exact reason for the problems or trying to ensure you’ve obliterated every last trace of malware. It’s much faster to simply start over from a known-good, clean state instead of trying to locate every possible problem and fix it. Ultimately, the answer is that “resetting a computer wipes away the current state of the software, including any problems that have developed, and allows it to start over from square one.” It’s easier and faster to start from a clean state than identify and fix any problems that may be occurring — in fact, in some cases, it may be impossible to fix problems without beginning from that clean state. Image Credit: Arria Belli on Flickr, DeclanTM on Flickr     

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  • More Than Headsets: 5 Things You Can Do With Bluetooth

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Your laptop, smartphone, and tablet probably all have integrated Bluetooth support. Bluetooth is a standard that allows devices to communicate wirelessly. Most people are familiar with Bluetooth headsets, but there are more things you can do with Bluetooth. To make two Bluetooth devices work together, you’ll have to “pair” them. For example, you can pair a Bluetooth mouse with your laptop, pair a Bluetooth headset with your phone, or pair your smartphone with your laptop.    

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  • How to Access Your Router If You Forget the Password

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Routers protect their web interfaces, where you can configure their networking, parental control, and port forwarding settings, with a username and password. These default passwords can be changed to protect the router’s settings. If you’ve forgotten a router’s password – or if you acquired a used router and don’t know its password – there’s a way to reset the password. You may also be able to forward ports without knowing the password. Image Credit: tnarik on Flickr How to Access Your Router If You Forget the Password Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor

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  • How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Have you ever noticed that a pixel – a little dot on your computer’s LCD monitor – is staying a single color all of the time? You have a stuck pixel. Luckily, stuck pixels aren’t always permanent. Stuck and dead pixels are hardware problems. They’re often caused by manufacturing flaws – pixels aren’t supposed to get stuck or die over time. Image Credit: Alexi Kostibas on Flickr How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot Our Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 is Now Available Everywhere

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  • How To Play DVDs on Windows 8

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Upgrade to Windows 8 and you may be surprised to find that you can no longer play video DVDs. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 8 doesn’t include built-in support for playing DVDs. Microsoft opted not to include DVD support because so many new computers – especially tablets and ultrabooks – aren’t coming with DVD drives. Microsoft pays a licensing fee for each copy of Windows that ships with DVD support. Note: You can still use data DVDs with Windows 8. This only applies to video DVDs. 6 Start Menu Replacements for Windows 8 What Is the Purpose of the “Do Not Cover This Hole” Hole on Hard Drives? How To Log Into The Desktop, Add a Start Menu, and Disable Hot Corners in Windows 8

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  • How to Back Up Your Linux System With Back In Time

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Ubuntu includes Déjà Dup, an integrated backup tool, but some people prefer Back In Time instead. Back In Time has several advantages over Déjà Dup, including a less-opaque backup format, integrated backup file browser, and more configurability. Déjà Dup still has a few advantages, notably its optional encryption and simpler interface, but Back In Time gives Déjà Dup a run for its money. How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 2 How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 1

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  • HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It

    - by Chris Hoffman
    You’ve probably heard that you need to overwrite a drive multiple times to make the data unrecoverable. Many disk-wiping utilities offer multiple-pass wipes. This is an urban legend – you only need to wipe a drive once. Wiping refers to overwriting a drive with all 0’s, all 1’s, or random data. It’s important to wipe a drive once before disposing of it to make your data unrecoverable, but additional wipes offer a false sense of security. Image Credit: Norlando Pobre on Flickr HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online Here’s How to Download Windows 8 Release Preview Right Now HTG Explains: Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting

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  • How to Back Up & Restore Your Installed Ubuntu Packages With APTonCD

    - by Chris Hoffman
    APTonCD is an easy way to back up your installed packages to a disc or ISO image. You can quickly restore the packages on another Ubuntu system without downloading anything. After using APTonCD, you can install the backed up packages with a single action, add the packages as a software source, or restore them to your APT cache. How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 1 What’s the Difference Between Sleep and Hibernate in Windows? Screenshot Tour: XBMC 11 Eden Rocks Improved iOS Support, AirPlay, and Even a Custom XBMC OS

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  • How To Log Into Multiple Accounts On the Same Website At Once

    - by Chris Hoffman
    If you ever want to sign into two different accounts on the same website at once – say, to have multiple Gmail inboxes open next to each other – you can’t just open a new tab or browser window. Websites store your login state in browser-specific cookies. There are a number of ways you can get another browser window with its own cookies and stay logged into multiple accounts at once. HTG Explains: What is the Windows Page File and Should You Disable It? How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference How To Troubleshoot Internet Connection Problems

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  • 5 Android Keyboard Replacements to Help You Type Faster

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Android allows developers to replace its keyboard with their own keyboard apps. This has led to experimentation and great new features, like the gesture-typing feature that’s made its way into Android’s official keyboard after proving itself in third-party keyboards. This sort of customization isn’t possible on Apple’s iOS or even Microsoft’s modern Windows environments. Installing a third-party keyboard is easy — install it from Google Play, launch it like another app, and it will explain how to enable it. Google Keyboard Google Keyboard is Android’s official keyboard, as seen on Google’s Nexus devices. However, there’s a good chance your Android smartphone or tablet comes with a keyboard designed by its manufacturer instead. You can install the Google Keyboard from Google Play, even if your device doesn’t come with it. This keyboard offers a wide variety of features, including a built-in gesture-typing feature, as popularized by Swype. It also offers prediction, including full next-word prediction based on your previous word, and includes voice recognition that works offline on modern versions of Android. Google’s keyboard may not offer the most accurate swiping feature or the best autocorrection, but it’s a great keyboard that feels like it belongs in Android. SwiftKey SwiftKey costs $4, although you can try it free for one month. In spite of its price, many people who rarely buy apps have been sold on SwiftKey. It offers amazing auto-correction and word-prediction features. Just mash away on your touch-screen keyboard, typing as fast as possible, and SwiftKey will notice your mistakes and type what you actually meant to type. SwiftKey also now has built-in support for gesture-typing via SwiftKey Flow, so you get a lot of flexibility. At $4, SwiftKey may seem a bit pricey, but give the month-long trial a try. A great keyboard makes all the typing you do everywhere on your phone better. SwiftKey is an amazing keyboard if you tap-to-type rather than swipe-to-type. Swype While other keyboards have copied Swype’s swipe-to-type feature, none have completely matched its accuracy. Swype has been designing a gesture-typing keyboard for longer than anyone else and its gesture feature still seems more accurate than its competitors’ gesture support. If you use gesture-typing all the time, you’ll probably want to use Swype. Swype can now be installed directly from Google Play without the old, tedious process of registering a beta account and sideloading the Swype app. Swype offers a month-long free trial and the full version is available for $1 afterwards. Minuum Minuum is a crowdfunded keyboard that is currently still in beta and only supports English. We include it here because it’s so interesting — it’s a great example of the kind of creativity and experimentation that happens when you allow developers to experiment with their own forms of keyboard. Minuum uses a tiny, minimum keyboard that frees up your screen space, so your touch-screen keyboard doesn’t hog your device’s screen. Rather than displaying a full keyboard on your screen, Minuum displays a single row of letters.  Each letter is small and may be difficult to hit, but that doesn’t matter — Minuum’s smart autocorrection algorithms interpret what you intended to type rather than typing the exact letters you press. Just swipe to the right to type a space and accept Minuum’s suggestion. At $4 for a beta version with no trial, Minuum may seem a bit pricy. But it’s a great example of the flexibility Android allows. If there’s a problem with this keyboard, it’s that it’s a bit late — in an age of 5″ smartphones with 1080p screens, full-size keyboards no longer feel as cramped. MessagEase MessagEase is another example of a new take on text input. Thankfully, this keyboard is available for free. MessagEase presents all letters in a nine-button grid. To type a common letter, you’d tap the button. To type an uncommon letter, you’d tap the button, hold down, and swipe in the appropriate direction. This gives you large buttons that can work well as touch targets, especially when typing with one hand. Like any other unique twist on a traditional keyboard, you’d have to give it a few minutes to get used to where the letters are and the new way it works. After giving it some practice, you may find this is a faster way to type on a touch-screen — especially with one hand, as the targets are so large. Google Play is full of replacement keyboards for Android phones and tablets. Keyboards are just another type of app that you can swap in. Leave a comment if you’ve found another great keyboard that you prefer using. Image Credit: Cheon Fong Liew on Flickr     

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  • HTG Explains: What AppArmor Is and How It Secures Your Ubuntu System

    - by Chris Hoffman
    AppArmor is an important security feature that’s been included by default with Ubuntu since Ubuntu 7.10. However, it runs silently in the background, so you may not be aware of what it is and what it’s doing. AppArmor locks down vulnerable processes, restricting the damage security vulnerabilities in these processes can cause. AppArmor can also be used to lock down Mozilla Firefox for increased security, but it doesn’t do this by default. How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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  • HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Connect a USB stick to a Windows computer – even on Windows 8 – and Windows will ask if you want to speed up your system using ReadyBoost. But what exactly is ReadyBoost, and will it actually speed up your computer? ReadyBoost was introduced in Windows Vista, where it was a heavily promoted feature. Unfortunately, ReadyBoost isn’t a silver bullet that will make your computer faster, although it may be useful in some limited circumstances. HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks

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  • How to Speed Up Any Android Phone By Disabling Animations

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Android phones — and tablets, too — display animations when moving between apps and screens. These animations look very slick, but they waste time — especially on fast phones, which could switch between apps instantly if not for the animations. Disabling these animations will speed up navigating between different apps and interface screens on your phone, saving you time. You can also speed up the animations if you’d rather see them. Access the Developer Options Menu First, we’ll need to access the Developer Options menu. It’s hidden by default so Android users won’t stumble across it unless they’re actually looking for it. To access the Developer Options menu, open the Settings screen, scroll down to the bottom of the list, and tap the About phone or About tablet option. Scroll down to the Build number field and tap it repeatedly. Eventually, you’ll see a message appear saying “You are now a developer!”. The Developer options submenu now appears on the Settings screen. You’ll find it near the bottom of the list, just above the About phone or About tablet option. Disable Interface Animations Open the Developer Options screen and slide the switch at the top of the screen to On. This allows you to change the hidden options on this screen. If you ever want to re-enable the animations and revert your changes, all you have to do is slide the Developer Options switch back to Off. Scroll down to the Drawing section. You’ll find the three options we want here — Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale. Tap each option and set it to Animation off to disable the associated animations. If you’d like to speed up the animations without disabling them entirely, select the Animation .5x option instead. If you’re feeling really crazy, you can even select longer animation durations. You can make the animations take as much as ten times longer with the Animation 10x setting. The Animator duration scale option applies to the transition animation that appears when you tap the app drawer button on your home screen.  Your change here won’t take effect immediately — you’ll have to restart Android’s launcher after changing the Animator duration scale setting. To restart Android’s launcher, open the Settings screen, tap Apps, swipe over to the All category, scroll down, and tap the Launcher app. Tap the Force stop button to forcibly close the launcher, then tap your device’s home button to re-launch the launcher. Your app drawer will now open immediately, too. Now whenever you open an app or transition to a new screen, it will pop up as quickly as possible — no waiting for animations and wasting processing power rendering them. How much of a speed improvement you’ll see here depends on your Android device and how fast it is. On our Nexus 4, this change makes many apps appear and become usable instantly if they’re running in the background. If you have a slower device, you may have to wait a moment for apps to be usable. That’s one of the big reasons why Android and other operating systems use animations. Animations help paper over delays that can occur while the operating system loads the app.     

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