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....

Sometimes when you use applications every day, new features can go unnoticed. So that you’re up to speed with useful tools for your spreadsheets, take a look at these Microsoft Excel features you may have missed. 1. Sparklines for Quick Little Graphs While you can create many different types of charts and graphs in Excel, the sparkline option is one you might look past. With it, you can insert a useful graph into a single cell without distracting from the data....

Miss the mid-90s? Me neither, but Windows 95 still gives me a good feeling. You can download it right now if you want. There’s no setup: you just download and run, and you’re done. The entire thing is built in Electron, which means what you’re downloading is: A web browser, which Runs a virtual machine, which Runs an entire operating system It’s a shocking waste of system resources, and I think it’s hilarious....

I love Spotify. I listen to hundreds of hours of music with it every year. While there are great tools like the Daily Mixes that make it easy to find music to listen to, sometimes you just want a playlist of your own design. With almost every song you could ever want at your fingertips, however, putting together an awesome playlist can be tricky. How do you remember all the songs you want to add?...

Luma’s home Wi-Fi system is easy to set up and use, and it even comes with basic parental controls that allow you to block inappropriate content from your kids while they surf the web. But it has some…caveats. RELATED: How to Set Up the Luma Home Wi-Fi System Luma’s parental controls work by using Domain Name Service (DNS) filtering, which simply blocks certain web addresses that are known to contain inappropriate content....

If you use Outlook to check and manage your email, you can easily use it to check your Gmail account as well. You can set up your Gmail account to allow you to synchronize email across multiple machines using email clients instead of a browser. RELATED: Email Basics: POP3 is Outdated; Please Switch to IMAP Today We will show you how to use IMAP in your Gmail account so you can synchronize your Gmail account across multiple machines, and then how to add your Gmail account to Outlook 2010, 2013, or 2016....

How to Adjust Vibration Intensity on a Stock-Like Android Visit your Android phone or tablet’s Settings menu from the app drawer or by tapping the gear icon in the notification panel. Scroll down and enter the “Accessibility” menu. Under “Interaction Controls” located toward the bottom of the page, select “Vibration and Haptic Haptics” (or “Vibration and Haptic Strength”). Here, you can separately personalize your phone’s haptic feedback strength and how strongly it buzzes when you get a phone call or a notification....

Does someone you follow on Twitter retweet constantly, flooding your timeline with nonsense? Do particular accounts you never want to hear from keep popping up anyway? Here’s how to quickly filter that stuff out, without unfollowing people you otherwise like. Hypothetically, let’s say you follow someone who, while generally insightful, occasionally retweets nonsense from your mortal enemy. This cannot stand. And it doesn’t have to! We can block all of Whitson Gordon’s retweets....

By default, new workbooks created in Excel contain one worksheet. If you typically use more than one worksheet, you can change the number of worksheets available by default in new workbooks with a simple setting. You can add worksheets easily using the plus icon to the right of the worksheet tabs as you work. However, if you know you’re going to want more than one worksheet in each new workbook you create, we’ll show you a setting that allows you to specify how many worksheets will be automatically created in new workbooks....

For example, my home network has a lousy Verizon FIOS router that’s only Wireless-G, and so I’ve got a separate Linksys dual-band wireless-N router hooked up inside the FIOS network—the only problem is that we’ve got 3 separate networks going, and as you can see from the screenshot, the lousy YDQ48 network is above lhdevnet in the list, so Windows tries that one first. Note: naturally, you could disable the networks if you don’t need to use them, but for our scenario we’re assuming that you do....

One of the worst things about modern smartphones being dominated by Apple and Samsung is that almost everyone’s phone sounds the same. Any time I’m out in public and I hear Apple’s default text tone I instantly reach for my pocket. If you’re in a similar situation, here’s how to change the tone so you aren’t quite as confused. While you can’t change the notification sounds of most third-party apps on iOS, you can change a lot of the default system sounds, such as the noise your iPhone makes when it rings, you get a new text message, voicemail, or email, you get a calendar event or reminder alert, or you send an email or file through AirDrop....

Printing a checklist so that you can mark completed items is fine. But if you prefer a digital method, want to include checklists in your documents, and even share them with others, Google Docs has you covered. With a recent Google Docs update, you can now create and mark off your list items with a built-in checklist tool. This means no more using squares instead of bullets, no more printing, and no more extra steps when you want a checklist in Google Docs....

If your Windows 10 PC reboots to a black screen, just press Ctrl+Alt+Del on your keyboard. Windows 10’s normal Ctrl+Alt+Del screen will appear. Click the power button at the bottom-right corner of your screen and select “Restart” to restart your PC. According to Microsoft’s support document, this will solve your problem. Your computer will restart normally with no more black screen. It’s unclear what caused this problem—just another issue with a Windows 10 update....

Aiming with the mouse is essential in almost any PC shooting game, doubly so if you play online. It’s a simple and intuitive process, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. To improve your precision and reaction time when playing your favorite shooters, you’ll want to look at three things: hardware, software, and training. Don’t worry, this isn’t as hard (or as annoying) as it sounds. Hardware: Get The Right Mouse for the Job The hyperbolic marketing of gaming accessory companies like Razer is sometimes a bit ridiculous....

Tired of your kids or roommate posting dumb things to your Facebook account every time you leave the room? All you have to do lock your Mac to keep them out. When you lock your Mac, you can only unlock it with your password—or your thumbprint if you’ve got a new MacBook Pro with a Touchbar. There are several ways to lock your Mac. You can have it lock automatically when your display goes to sleep....

A data-heavy spreadsheet can be difficult to read through and process. If you’re using Google Sheets, adding graphs to your spreadsheet can help you present this information differently for easier reading. Here’s how you can add graphs to your spreadsheet. Before we begin, you should be aware of a slight difference in terminology. Like Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets refers to all types of graphs as charts. You can use the Chart Editor tool to create these graphs and charts in Google Sheets....

Sling TV has been a huge catalyst in allowing users to let go of traditional cable companies and move forward with an all-streaming-all-the-time model. If you’re one of the millions who have made the switch—or are one of the millions who are considering making said switch—then you’ll want to make the most of your new streaming service. RELATED: What Is Sling TV, and Can It Replace Your Cable Subscription?...

Ads are an unfortunate necessity on the internet—they’re how sites like this one are able to operate. But if you find personalized ads a little too creepy, you can tell Google (one of the internet’s biggest ad networks) to stop showing you personalized ads. RELATED: 13 Things You Can Do With the Google Settings App on Any Android Device That way, instead of getting ads for things that you’ve recently searched for (or similar items), you could see completely unrelated, unpersonalized ads that aren’t based on your search and browser history....

Google seems to think there’s a good reason to have a shortcut that will kill every single one of your tabs at once. We disagree. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Q will close every Chrome tab or window you have open and ruin your work. If you’d rather keep your work where it is, here’s a workaround to make sure that doesn’t happen. Frustratingly, Chrome’s “nuke everything” shortcut sits right next to another more useful browser shortcut, Ctrl+Shift+Tab, which goes to your previous browser tab....

The Professional, Enterprise, and Education editions of Windows 10 provide more control over Windows Update than the Home edition does. If you have one of those editions, then starting with the Creators Update, you can now pause receiving updates and defer some updates for up to a year. RELATED: How to Pause Updates on Windows 10 How to Pause Updates Windows can pause updates for 35 days. After the period expires, Windows 10 automatically unpauses, looks for updates, and begins installing them....