Windows Search makes searching for files on your PC a lot faster, but if you find that things slow down when Windows indexes files or that Search isn’t working as expected, there are a few steps you can take. Speed Up Indexing by Only Including Certain Locations The best way to trim down the amount of processor time the indexing service uses is by trimming down the number of files being indexed....

Bluetooth mice are conveniently cordless, but it’s very frustrating when they lose their connection. Read on as we troubleshoot a reader’s Windows laptop and help them keep their mouse awake and in communication with their computer. If ever there was an email to motivate us to get around to fixing a problem with one of our infrequently used laptops, this is it. For months we’ve been meaning to take a moment to troubleshoot an identical problem: we too have a Windows 7 laptop laying around the office that frequently forgets it has a little Bluetooth friend....

When you’re out of the house, Android notifies you if you’re near an open Wi-Fi network. That’s handy when you want to log into the internet at a coffee shop. It’s infuriating when you pass every single hotspot along the freeway. If you’re sick of those notifications, here’s how to turn them off. This feature is baked into Android, but it may look a little different depending on your phone’s manufacturer....

If you use your iOS device in landscape mode a lot, you’ve likely noticed that it swaps your keyboard with the handwriting interface. Don’t worry! You don’t have to give up on widescreen texting, you just have to set a simple toggle. Introduced with much fanfare upon the release of iOS 10, the iMessage handwriting feature is a messaging novelty that allows you to send “hand written” messages to people in place of regular texts or emoji....

You’re a Linux user, so naturally you’re not Microsoft’s biggest fan. But even you have to admit: Microsoft’s Bing has really nice photos on the home page. You like looking at those pictures, but refuse to use Bing. What’s a Linux user to do? Set up their desktop wallpaper to use those pretty pictures, that’s what! This gives you all the pretty pictures with none of the actual Binginess. And more than one open source enthusiast has designed tools for doing just this....

You’ve created a local account in Windows and you want to use Cortana. However, you need a Microsoft account to activate and use Cortana, but you don’t want to convert your local account to a Microsoft one. What a dilemma. Cortana uses and stores information about you through your Microsoft account. And, thanks to the recent Windows 10 update in November, there is a way to log in to your Microsoft account for Cortana only, while preserving your local Windows 10 account....

Fraps is best known as an easy and lightweight way to see an active readout of your PC games’ frames per second—that’s where the name comes from. But it’s also a surprisingly flexible way to record game footage for posting to YouTube, Twitch, and other web video services. The relatively low resource usage and easy activation make it ideal for quickly starting and stopping the record function. Here’s how it’s done....

ls Lists Files and Directories The ls command is probably the first command most Linux users encounter. Those of us who hang around the command line use it day in and day out without even thinking about it. That might explain why there is more to this command than most users realize. We list files with it to see what’s in a directory. We list files in long format when we want to look at the permissions on a file....

There are lots of tools out there for taking screenshots in Windows. However, you may not need to install a third party app. Snipping Tool, included in Windows Vista and later, allows you to take screenshots, as well as edit and annotate them. We briefly covered the Snipping Tool in our articles about taking screenshots on almost any device and taking screenshots in Windows 10, but we’ll go into more detail here, showing you how to take, save, edit, annotate, and email screenshots, as well as how to customize the settings in the Snipping Tool....

If you’re like me, you try to avoid using your mouse whenever possible. Nothing against the mouse, it’s just that moving your fingers from the keys tends to slow things down. On macOS, the menu bar feels like a speed bump, forcing you to pick up the mouse and browse a menu if you don’t know a particular keyboard shortcut. But there’s a better way. RELATED: How to Automatically Hide or Show the Menu Bar on a Mac...

To protect yourself, you should ensure that your router is configured securely. This is about more than just enabling Wi-Fi encryption and not hosting an open Wi-Fi network. Disable Remote Access Routers offer a web interface, allowing you to configure them through a browser. The router runs a web server and makes this web page available when you’re on the router’s local network. However, most routers offer a “remote access” feature that allows you to access this web interface from anywhere in the world....

Here’s a really stupid geek trick for you Mac users out there: You can make OS X lose its mind when minimizing a window with some quick timing and a terminal command. This trick was first shown to me a few days ago by our very own Mac guru writer, Alex Layne, but I just finally got around to writing it up for the rest of you. Enjoy! Make OS X Get Weird The trick to getting this to work is to first open up a Terminal window, and then type in killall Dock, but don’t hit enter, and make sure to use a capital letter since this command is case sensitive....

You could make that threat all day with the same cup of hot coffee, but people are apparently buying these for other reasons. Much of the marketing copy around self-heating mugs tends to involve some version of the phrase “We’ve all been there,” and goes on to regale us with woeful tales of abandoned coffee that got cold. This poor hot cup of coffee is just sitting there, waiting to share sweet caffeinated energy with its owner, and then is heartlessly abandoned and slowly buried under falling snow like the sled in Citizen Kane....

Google Wi-Fi is similar to other mesh Wi-Fi systems, but one big feature separates it from the pack: Google On.Here. What Is On.Here? In the simplest of terms, On.Here is a web interface that you can access in order to control smarthome devices without needing an app or even signing up for an account. Anyone who is connected to your Google Wi-Fi network (even guests) can type “On.Here” into their web browser of choice (either on a phone, tablet, or computer) and instantly control smarthome devices....

Malware isn’t the only online threat to worry about. Social engineering is a huge threat, and it can hit you on any operating system. In fact, social engineering can also occur over the phone and in face-to-face situations. It’s important to be aware of social engineering and be on the lookout. Security programs won’t protect you from most social engineering threats, so you have to protect yourself. Social Engineering Explained Traditional computer-based attacks often depend on finding a vulnerability in a computer’s code....

Keeping track of resources on your PC is one of the proud geek traditions that will probably never die – instead, it spread over to smartphones and tablets, with task manager utilities being some of the most popular apps for a long time. The biggest problem in Windows is that there are way too many utilities to choose from when you’re trying to track resources. So today, we’ll go through some of the useful features in Task Manager and Resource Monitor....

There are some pretty cool things you can do with Siri in macOS Sierra, including search the web for images. But what if you want to use one of those images in an email, or other app? All you need is a drag and drop. It’s really easy, so let’s explain how it works. Activate Siri by either clicking its icon in the menu bar, Dock, or using the keyboard shortcut Option+Spacebar....

Once a week we dig into our reader mailbag and answer your burning questions. Today we’re taking a peek at how to enable the missing FTP functionality in XBMC, rename your downloaded TV shows, and get access to the Market when emulating Android. Restoring The FTP Service in XBMC Dear Searchin’, I recently ditched my old Xbox-based XBMC units in favor of a modern nettop-based XBMC unit (HD video, here I come!...

There are few things that can compare with the sinking feeling you get when you go to turn your computer on and it quickly dies a moment later due to hardware problems. With that issue in mind, today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a stressed-out reader’s question. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites....

RetroArch is the ultimate all-in-one emulator, compatible with every system you can imagine. From classic Nintendo consoles to arcade boxes and even the Playstation or Wii, RetroArch brings massive gaming collections under one roof. RELATED: How to Set Up RetroArch, The Ultimate All-In-One Retro Games Emulator But it does so much more than just run games. It can make playing games even better, with cheats and filters and even real-time rewinding....