If you are looking for ways to tweak your Windows system to conserve disk space, you might be looking at NTFS compression as an option. But if you choose this option, then how does the decompression process work? 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....

Can My ISP See If I’m Using a VPN? The answer to the first part is simple: Yes, your ISP could determine that you’re using a VPN if it wanted to. This is due to the way a VPN works: When you use the internet without a VPN, you connect from your computer to your ISP’s system, which in turn connects to the site you want to visit—it’s a tiny bit more complicated than that, but for our purposes it’s enough....

When you shut down your computer, Windows doesn’t shut down immediately. Instead, it gives running applications and services some time to close first. You can control how long Windows waits—and whether it automatically closes running applications or not. You shouldn’t normally need to change these settings, but it can be helpful if you’d like to force your computer to shut down more quickly. Some applications may also mess with these settings when you install them, and you might want to reset them to the default values if your shutdown process seems slow....

There’s a common misconception that if you have a simple setup, like only one home computer, you don’t need a router. Read on as we explain why even a lone desktop needs a buddy. As you’ve discovered, you can, in fact, just plug your computer directly into your broadband modem and start browsing the internet. You can also drive a car without insurance or a seat belt too, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best course of action....

You don’t need third-party virtualization tools like VirtualBox and VMware on Linux. KVM (Kernel-based virtual machine) is an open-source virtualization technology built into the Linux kernel. GNOME Boxes provides a pretty front-end that makes it easy to use. We’ve previously recommended using the Virt-Manager tool to create KVM virtual machines. Boxes is a more user-friendly tool designed for average desktop users instead of system administrators.. Despite the name, you can run it on any desktop environment....

Touch ID on the new MacBook Pro makes logging in so much easier: just place your finger on the power button, and you’re in. It’s a small thing, but it makes waking up your computer and logging in nearly instant. By default, this works with whatever finger you choose when you first set up your Mac, but sometimes you might want to use a different finger. Maybe you’re carrying your MacBook with your right hand, and want to log in with your left index finger, or even your right thumb....

Every bit of monitor space is precious, particularly vertical space. But in Windows 10, the fairly large taskbar takes up real estate even when you don’t need it. It’s easy to hide the taskbar when not in use. First, right-click an empty place on the taskbar. A menu will pop up. Click the bottom option, “Settings.” (If you’re using an older version of Windows, you might need to click “Preferences” instead; more on that below....

Android’s notification system is easily one of its most powerful features. But with great power comes great responsibility, and some apps choose to abuse this. If you’re sick of constant notifications from specific apps, here’s how to completely disable them. RELATED: How to Manage, Customize, and Block Notifications in Android Nougat Ideally, you’d turn off notifications through the offending app’s settings. Don’t want Facebook bombarding you with notifications? Head to the Facebook app, open its settings, and turn notifications off....

Webapps have come a long way. Thanks to features like notifications, they can even replace traditional desktop apps for many people. But if you’d rather not be bombarded by notifications, though, here’s how to manage Chrome’s notifications (and block them from certain apps). RELATED: How to Enable Google’s “Material Design” in Chrome Before we jump in, all of these settings should be identical in Chrome on PCs, as well as on Chromebooks....

It’s pretty rare when devices allow you to change the color of their LED lights, but with the SkyBell HD video doorbell, you can. Here’s how to do it. RELATED: How to Install and Set Up the SkyBell HD Video Doorbell By default, the SkyBell HD’s LED color is green, which is actually a practical color to use in this case (green means go, so go ahead and ring on the doorbell…right?...

Whether you’ve just gotten married, no longer identify with your birth name, or just want to change the overly formal “Robert” to “Rob” on your profile, here’s how to change the name you’re using on Facebook. Before diving in, it’s worth having a look at Facebook’s names policy. You’re required to use “the name [you] go by in everyday life”, but this gives you a fair amount of flexibility. My name on Facebook is Harry and it’s what everyone calls me, but it’s not the name on my birth certificate....

PowerPoint provides extremely useful resources called templates that automatically construct the foundation and framework of your presentation. If you can’t quite find one that’s just right for you, you can create your own. Here’s how to do it. Create a Custom PowerPoint Template To create a custom PowerPoint template, you’ll first need to open a blank presentation. You can do so by clicking the “File” tab and then selecting “New” in the left pane....

The lock screen on Windows 8 and 10 isn’t just a background image or slideshow. It can display notifications and detailed status information from a variety of apps. You can also access Cortana directly from this screen. But there’s still a lot you can do to customize the lock screen to your liking. Windows 8 and 10 work similarly, but we’ll use Windows 10 in the examples below. Set a Custom Lock Screen Background (and Get Rid of Ads) RELATED: How to Disable Ads on Your Windows 10 Lock Screen...

Windows 10 includes a bunch of personalization settings that let you change your desktop background, windows colors, lock screen background, and more. Here is what you need to know to get your computer looking exactly how you want it. We’re going to be talking about the Personalization settings Windows makes available at Settings > Personalization, so you might as well go ahead and fire that up now. There are other ways you can customize your computer’s look, though, such as configuring folder options , or customizing the Start menu, Taskbar, Action Center, and icons however it makes sense to you....

We’ve all downloaded files from the web to our computer. However, if you’d rather download files directly to your Google Drive account, there’s an extension for Google Chrome that allows you to do just that. Google’s Save to Google Drive extension allows you to save downloaded files directly to your Google Drive account, as well as save webpages to Google Drive as images, HTML files, or even Google documents. If you’re using the Google Drive desktop client for Windows or macOS, you can save downloaded files directly to your local Google Drive folder and they will be uploaded to your Google Drive account automatically....

Should you need to isolate data in Google Sheets based on specific criteria in a cell, you can use conditional formatting to highlight entire rows in your spreadsheet. Here’s how to do it. Fire up your browser, head to Google Sheets, and open up a spreadsheet with a table of data you want to apply conditional formatting to highlight specific rows. RELATED: The Beginner’s Guide to Google Sheets Highlight all the cells inside the table and then click on Format > Conditional Formatting from the toolbar....

LibreOffice has many useful features, but you can add even more. Much like Firefox add-ons or Chrome extensions, you can add extensions to LibreOffice to expand its capabilities. For example, there are extensions that add an enhanced Find & Replace dialog box for Writer (AltSearch), a grammar checker for Writer (Lightproof), a Calendar for Calc, a floating Search window in Calc, and the ability to perform calculations directly in a Writer document (iMath)....

Git is an essential tool if you’re going to be coding. It lets you conveniently manage different versions of code within a repository (repo). Git is also the most common way to access GitHub, one of the largest code repositories in the world. Here are a few ways to install Git on Windows. Download the Windows Executable The easiest way to get Git is to download the executable from the Git website....

How to Create a Pie Chart in Excel To create a pie chart in Excel, first, open your spreadsheet with the Excel app. We’ll use the following spreadsheet for this guide: In your spreadsheet, select the data that you want to plot on your pie chart. Do not select the sum of any numbers as you probably don’t want to display it on your chart. While your data is selected, in Excel’s ribbon at the top, click the “Insert” tab....