RELATED: 6 Awesome Spotify Features You Should Be Using Tell Spotify Not to Start Automatically To find this option, open the Spotify app. You can launch it from the Start menu or double-click the green Spotify icon in your notification area (system tray) if it’s already running. At the top-left corner of the Spotify window, click menu (…) > Edit > Preferences. Scroll down to the bottom of the Settings page and click the “Show Advanced Settings” button....

Windows is great at a lot of things. Handling its sound devices is not one of them. Despite the fact that most desktop PCs come with multiple sound output options (standard stereo, surround, front and rear, and so on), it’s still a pain to actually switch between them. Let’s see if we can change that. The Old-Fashioned Way Before you try to switch sound output the easy way, you need to know how to do it the hard way, if only to familiarize yourself with how Windows structures its sound options....

Why spend $300 on an AirPort Time Capsule when you can make one yourself with a Raspberry Pi and an external hard drive? It takes a little tweaking, but once it’s all set up, your Mac will back up automatically, without any effort on your part. No more having to plug a drive into your computer. Even better: when it comes time to restore files, you can unplug the hard drive from the Pi and plug it directly into your Mac, allowing you to recover from a total system failure using System Recovery....

PlayStation users have long wanted a way to plug in an external USB drive to their console and use it as local storage for games, apps, and the like. After years of waiting, Sony incorporated this feature in Software Update 4.50. Here’s how to do it. RELATED: What’s the Difference Between the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Slim, and PlayStation 4 Pro? Before you get started, you should make sure to pick the right drive....

When you start digging deeper into your computer’s internal hardware to monitor or tweak it, you may occasionally run across a listing that seems strange and unexpected, like HAMP, for example. What does it mean? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious 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....

Drone Laws and Regulations: Your Biggest Hurdle Regardless of why you find yourself considering a drone, by far the biggest hurdle you’ll have to clear are your local drone laws and regulations. We’ll be focusing on laws that are applicable to the US, so if you’re reading this and you’re located overseas then you’ll need to do your research to ensure you don’t fall foul of drone regulations in your country....

Stardew Valley is coming to iPhone, iPad, and Android. It’s the full single-player game with a new interface rebuilt for touch screens. And you can import save games from Windows PC or Mac. If you haven’t played Stardew Valley, you should. It’s a charming and relaxing farming simulator that was clearly a labor of love for its developer. Developer Eric Barone, also known as ConcernedApe, revealed the news on the game’s blog....

If you have an Android phone, you undoubtedly have some sort of photo management app installed—most likely, it’s just called “Gallery.” But you know what? That’s not the be-all-end-all of photo apps. In fact, there are a slew of others on the Play Store that do a much better job of handling your photos. The Best Option for Most People: Google Photos Okay, I will admit that this one is kind of cheating—after all, there’s a possibility our favorite photo management app is already installed on your device, since it’s the default on some newer stock Android phones....

If you haven’t already, be sure and check out the two previous articles in the series: Turn Your Home Router Into a Super-Powered Router with DD-WRT How to Boost Your Wi-Fi Network Signal and Increase Range with DD-WRT Assuming you are familiar with those topics, keep reading. Keep in mind that this guide is a little more technical, and beginners should be careful when modding their router. Overview This guide will give a step by step rundown of how to create your own DD-WRT firmware with modifications and additions using the “firmware modification kit“....

Smoke-Free SF means “smoke-free.” Online sellers use it in product listings to describe an item with no exposure to cigarette smoke, which is an important factor for a thing holding its value. Since the smell of cigarettes is so strong and difficult to remove, many buyers will actively avoid products that have a tobacco smoke scent. Furthermore, some products might have noticeable cigarette burns or marks caused by ash. You can use SF for a wide variety of products, including garments, furniture, linens, and toys....

Microsoft Editor is an AI-powered intelligent writing assistant available for Word, Outlook, and as a browser extension. Microsoft Editor, available in over 20 languages, aims to make you a better writer. Here’s a brief look at how to use it. Microsoft provides a basic version of Editor for free—so long as you have a Microsoft account. This version includes the essentials that you’d expect in a writing assistant, such as a grammar and spell checker....

Your ISP advertises a 40 megabit per second connection, but that doesn’t look anything like the download speed you see when you’re grabbing a big file. What’s the deal? Are you not getting all the bandwidth you’re paying for? This is a fun question because it allows us to discuss and clear up a common misconception, and learn a little bit about computer history along the way. The package deal I have through my local ISP is for a 40Mb connection (that’s the wording they use)....

By default, Windows 10 compresses JPEG pictures you use as your background, reducing it to around 85% of the original quality. If you’re bothered by the compression artifacts this often introduces, here’s how use high quality images instead. We’re not really sure why Windows 10 compresses background images. It’s not like doing so saves tons of disk space, and using better quality images doesn’t really use up any system resources....

All phones slow down over time. As hardware gets older and software gets newer, it’s inevitable. But there’s another reason your iPhone might be slow: the battery. This phenomenon was first proposed in a Reddit thread, and then subsequently in a blog post by John Poole at Geekbench. Now, Apple has confirmed that it slows down iPhones with aging batteries. Here’s why it happens, and what you can do about it....

It’s impossible to completely protect any device from an attacker with physical access. But, unless you set up your Mac properly, it just takes a reboot and a few seconds to bypass your password — or wipe your hard drive. For all the talk about security vulnerabilities, the ability for anyone to quickly change a Mac’s password is rarely thought about. It’s yet another good reason to use FileVault encryption and perhaps set a firmware password....

Apple put a touch screen on their keyboard, but they don’t want developers using it as a display. No sir. To quote their Human Interface Guidelines for developers: So that’s what the most powerful company on earth wants. But you know what? Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. Play Video Here’s to the people who looked at Apple’s Touch Bar, thought to themselves “I can put something stupid on there,” and then did....

Can you not see your laptop’s screen in a bright room, or do you think the colors on your desktop computer’s display look dull and lifeless? Maybe you chose the wrong type of display coating. You have a choice between glossy and matte displays when you buy a laptop or computer monitor. They’re similar, but the differences matter. How They’re Similar Glossy and matte displays use the same LCD panels....

Before we dig in though, it’s important to note two things. First and foremost, a safety warning. What we’re discussing here is supplementing the regular smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in your home by configuring your smart speakers to listen for the alarm sound. Except for the rare combination units on the market like the First Alert Onelink Safe & Sound there are no smart speakers that can detect fires or carbon monoxide on their own....

Do you spend a lot of time using Windows Explorer? Wouldn’t it be handy if you could start your favorite program right from within the Explorer window? There’s an easy way to add applications to your Favorites List in Explorer. We have previously shown you how to add your own folders to the Favorites list for quick access to often-used files. However, if you try to drag an application to the Favorites list, a message displays telling you the link cannot be placed in Favorites....

Your Mac’s Mail app supports multiple accounts with separate inboxes, but you can’t add new accounts directly from the app’s settings. To change accounts, you’ll need to use the System Preferences. How to Add or Remove Email Accounts in Mail The accounts that Mail uses come directly from the “Internet Accounts” section in the system preferences. If you want to add a new account, you’ll have to do it there....