You encrypt your Mac’s system drive like you should: if your computer is stolen, your data is safe from prying eyes. But on your desk, right next to your Mac, is a carbon copy of everything on your hard drive: your Time Machine backup. Wouldn’t anyone who grabbed that drive have access to all the same information? Yes they would, which is why it’s important to encrypt your Time Machine drive....

iOS 10 finally adds the ability to filter your email based on a number of preset criteria. The pickings are slim right now, but it’s a promising start. RELATED: How to Set Up Rules in Apple Mail Mail filters may not be anything new to you. If you use Mail on macOS (or other popular email programs for that matter), then you’re already familiar with rules, but you can also easily sort your mailboxes a number of ways....

Android Wear is a useful tool for checking notifications and getting quick info without having to actually take out your phone. But it’s kind of useless if your watch’s battery is dead. Here’s how to figure out what’s causing your battery drain. RELATED: How to Set Up, Tweak, and Use Your Android Wear Watch First things first: go ahead and jump into the Android Wear app on your phone. Once you’re there, tap that little cog icon in the top right corner....

If you’ve ever tried to download an app for sideloading on your Android phone, then you know how confusing it can be. Often there are several versions of the same app designed for various device specs—so how do you know which one is the right one? Understanding the Different File Versions If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re trying to download an app from APK Mirror, which is a legitimate hosting site for APKs that are available for free in the Play Store....

Origin’s “Great Game Guarantee” applies to all games published by EA itself and a few third-party games. If you’re not happy with a game purchase, you can return it for a refund—just like on Steam. Origin began offering refunds before Steam did, but Steam’s refund policy does apply to a wider selection of games. How Origin’s Great Game Guarantee Works RELATED: How to Refund a Game on Steam Origin’s Great Game Guarantee allows you to return games for a full refund....

The best part of installing the Play Store on your Fire Tablet is that it doesn’t require any in-depth “hacking” like rooting or running scripts from a PC. It’s just a matter of downloading and installing a few APK files from the tablet itself, and you’ll be up and running with the Play Store just like your regular Android phone or tablet! Let’s get started. Download the Play Store Files Before we begin, make sure your Fire Tablet is from 2014 or later....

Say you’re out for a jog. You’re in the zone, you’ve got your earbuds in, you’re listening to your tunes, your iPhone is strapped to your arm for safe keeping, and then someone calls you. Who is it, and more importantly, should you even answer? RELATED: 26 Actually Useful Things You Can Do with Siri The problem to anyone who’s ever been in a situation like this is obvious. If it’s your spouse, partner, or a family member, you probably want to make the effort to answer their call....

PowerPoint offers many ways to create unique presentations using animations. You can do something simple like making a typewriter animation or something theatrical like displaying Star Wars scrolling text. Another option is to reveal one line at a time. By using an animation to bring in individual lines in PowerPoint, you can not only create a distinctive slideshow, but a useful one too. You may want to expand on each item in a bullet list, further explain each step in a numbered list, or discuss separate lines without a list at all....

Click or tap the plus sign in Discord’s message box. Find the video file in your folders and select it. If it’s too large, compress it and try again, or upload it to a video hosting service and share the link. While sharing content as a free user on Discord, know that your file size must not exceed 8 MB. If you are a Discord Nitro subscriber, you can share files up to 50 MB in size....

Alarms are typically set to specific times, but it’s possible to create alerts based on the dynamic sunrise and sunset times in your area. This can be done with a Google Assistant routine on Android. If you’re interested in doing this on an iPhone, it’s possible through a Shortcuts automation. On Android, however, we’ll be utilizing a Google Assistant routine and the sunrise/sunset action. Keep in mind that this is not a typical “alarm,” but more like an alert....

Android devices can access Google Lens in a couple of different ways, depending on your phone. However, the universal method that works for Android, iPhone, and iPad is through the Google app. Of course, the first thing you’ll need is a math problem to solve. Google Lens can solve simple equations such as “5+2” or more complex formulas such as “x2 – 3x + 2.” You can scan the problem from a real-world piece of paper or from a digital display....

Minecraft is a fantastic game to play on your local network with friends, but it’s no fun when you have to spend half your time troubleshooting connection problems. Let’s take a look at how to identify and iron out issues with Minecraft LAN play. Identifying the General Problem Thanks to its popularity and the number of parents wrestling with it for their kids, we get more emails about Minecraft than any other game....

Popular Highlights appear in lots of Kindle books. You’ll come across underlined text while you’re reading, along with a little note saying that there are “386 Highlighters” or something. There are a couple of problems with this: Popular Highlights break your immersion. If you’re reading your favorite book, you might not be interested in seeing that a sentence has been highlighted by lots of people. Popular Highlights direct your reading and stop you from thinking independently....

Those tiny lights on your Eero router may not seem very bright, but once you turn the lights off in the room, it’s like they shine as bright as the sun. There are ways you can block or dim the LED lights on all your device, but the Eero actually has an option to turn these off. RELATED: How to Set Up the Eero Home Wi-Fi System In the Eero App To turn off the LED lights on your Eero units, you can do so within the app....

Windows 10’s touch keyboard uses sound effects by default. Every time you tap a key, you’ll hear a typing sound. You can disable this in Windows 10’s Settings app if you’d rather use a silent keyboard. First, open the Start menu or Start screen and tap the “Settings” icon. Tap the “Devices” icon in the Settings app. Tap “Typing” at the left side of the Settings window, scroll down, and set “Play key sounds as I type” to “Off”....

ClearType is font-smoothing technology built into Windows to help make text more readable on LCD monitors. If your text is looking a little blurry, tweaking your ClearType settings can definitely help. There are a few issues that can cause slight blurriness. For starters, you should always use your monitor’s native resolution. Windows uses the native resolution by default, but some games and other apps can lower it and then not reset it properly when they’re done....

A pop-up menu will appear. From this list, select “Manage Your Content and Devices”. On the next screen, click on the “Your Devices” tab. On the section below, click on “Device Actions”. In the drop-down menu that appears, click on “Deregister”. You’ll get a pop-up warning saying that doing this “will remove all content from the device and many features will not work.” Click on “Deregister” to confirm the action....

So you’ve just unpacked that spiffy new monitor, and it sits fresh and new on your desk putting your other little displays to shame. Now you have to give it some sartorial splendor: a kick-ass wallpaper from the online repository of your choice. But now comes the conundrum—what if you want to use different images on different screens? RELATED: How to Set a Different Wallpaper on Each Monitor in Windows 10...

The To-Do bar in Outlook 2007 allows us to do just that… you can drag any item to a specific day on the calendar without having to switch views. For illustration, I created a new task in the list… Now just drag that task up to the day you want to create an appointment… And up pops a new appointment, already keyed to the correct day. Instead of having to select the date, it’s already done for us!...

Looking to have a little fun with your files or play a clever prank on someone? With a simple batch script you can randomly rename every file in a directory instantly. Update: An “undo” function has been added to the script. There are comments in the batch script which explain how to use this. Just copy our RandomNames.bat script into a folder and run it. Before: After: Uses While it may not be immediately obvious, there are several somewhat practical uses for this:...