Posts

First Thing’s First: Your Internet Connection Poor streaming performance is often down to one single factor: poor internet speeds. If you have a slower internet connection, and it is slow on other devices like your smartphone or laptop, you’re going to encounter issues when streaming. This is especially true when watching high-resolution ultra-HD content, which has far greater bandwidth requirements than even 1080p HD. There’s one way to tell for sure though, and that’s to test your TV’s performance to see where the bottleneck lies....

Remember TV antennas? Well, they still exist. A digital TV antenna allows you to watch local TV stations for free, all without paying a dime to a cable provider. RELATED: Cutting the Cord: Can Buying Episodes and Watching TV Online Be Cheaper Than Cable? We’ve talked about cutting the cord by relying on Internet services, but this is yet another way to cut that TV bill and get more content to watch....

Winter is coming. In some regions of the US, it’s already starting to get noticeably colder, which means it’s about that time to prepare for the freezing months ahead. Here are some things you should do to get your house ready. Test Your Heating Before You Need It You probably don’t need to crank your furnace up just yet, but you certainly don’t want to wait until you absolutely need it before finding out that it needs repairing....

Plex Media Server is renowned for smooth and intuitive user experience, so you might be a bit surprised if you find yourself puzzled over exactly how to restart your server. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Where’s the *@%^ing Restart Button? If you’re a regular Plex user, you’ve gotten well used to interacting with your Plex Media Server through the web-based GUI—the place where you can handle all sorts of tasks like setting up remote access, sharing your library with friends, and optimizing your media, among other routine tasks and enhancements....

Saving an Email from Gmail To save an email from Gmail, open the email and click the three dots in the top-right corner next to the “Reply” button. In the menu that pops up, click “Download Message.” Your email will be saved to your default download location in .eml format. This can be opened by any email client or any browser. There’s no way to save multiple emails simultaneously, so if you want to download a lot of messages, you’ll have to use Google’s Takeout service to save your data....

With iOS 10, Apple finally lets you have an unlimited number of tabs open in Safari (the limit in iOS 9 was 36 tabs). With that many tabs, you need extra tricks like being able to close all tabs at once. And now, Safari also lets you search for specific tabs by title. Here’s how. RELATED: The Best New Features in iOS 10 (and How to Use Them) To search your open Safari tabs, you’ll have to rotate your device into landscape view....

Windows 10 automatically installs updates, including new versions of hardware drivers. But you can block Windows Update from installing driver updates, if you like. Early versions of the Creators Update included an easy graphical option to change this setting on Windows 10 Professional, but Microsoft decided to remove it. RELATED: What’s New in Windows 10’s Creators Update Note that your hardware drivers may still be updated by Windows Update in some situations....

Many privacy-conscious users prefer to stop apps and devices from reporting diagnostics to their parent companies. We generally think these are useful features, but if you’d prefer to turn them off, here’s how to disable them on the Google WiFi system. RELATED: Should I Let Apps Send “Usage Statistics” and “Error Reports”? Most devices have something like this, and it lets the company know how you’re using the device and what you use it for, which in turn is supposed to help the company improve upon the software....

Apple loves to criticize the state of Android tablet apps when pushing its own iPad tablets. But just how bad is the Android tablet app situation? Should you avoid Android tablets like the Nexus 7 because of the apps? It’s clear that Apple’s iPad is way ahead when it comes to the sheer quantity of tablet-optimized apps. It’s also clear that some popular apps — particularly touch-optimized games — only show up on iPad....

Slowly but surely, popular apps are updating to run on Macs with Apple Silicon chipsets, without the need for Apple’s slower compatibility layer. Now, Microsoft Teams has officially joined the party. Microsoft revealed in a blog post today, “we are rolling out a production grade universal binary version of Teams, which means it will run natively on the entire Mac lineup, including those with Apple silicon. For Mac users, this means a significant boost in performance, ensuring efficient use of device resources and an optimized Teams experience even when using multiple high-resolution monitors during calls or meetings....

iPhone 14 Pro units have already started to reach the hands of customers, and a handful of them have reported on social media platforms like Twitter and TikTok that their camera seems pretty broken on some apps. On a number of devices, using your camera on third-party apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat will show a wobbling, unfocused camera feed accompanied by an ugly, grinding sound coming from the camera module....

Modern smartphones and cloud photo services want to automatically upload every single photo you take to the cloud. This ensures all those photos you take are safely backed up somewhere, but it isn’t ideal for every single photo. Unfortunately, companies like Apple and Google haven’t gotten that message. Here’s how to control which photos get uploaded, and to where. Choose Whether You Want to Automatically Upload Photos or Not RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Using iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library...

Laptops, especially gaming laptops, are a study in compromises. Smaller machines are lighter and easier to travel with, but bigger, heavier boxes offer the dedicated graphics cards necessary for high-end gaming. An external graphics card let you have your cake (no lie) and eat it too. What Is an eGPU? An external GPU (or eGPU for short) is a dedicated box that combines an open PCIe slot, a desktop-style power supply, and a full-sized graphics card that plugs into your laptop....

Tabs, glorious tabs! Every web browser now has them, including Apple’s Safari. In fact, tabs have been a part of Safari since the very beginning, but there’s a lot more to them than you may have realized. Let’s walk you through and show you all you need to know to become a Safari tab master. How to Open, Pin, and Close Tabs RELATED: The Complete Guide to Mastering Tabs in Google Chrome...

Breathing mindfully isn’t just a fad or buzzword, it can help you focus and sharpen your concentration. This in turn, allows you to better deal with anxiety, stressful events, and negative emotions like anger and impatience. Mindful breathing doesn’t mean that you’re always keeping your mind on your breath. It means taking a moment to breathe deeply and completely, focusing solely on the breath from its beginning to its completion....

At one time or another, all of us have had to force our computers to shut down by pushing and holding the power button down until they powered off. Is this mechanism hardware-based, firmware-based, or both? 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....

What Is RAM? RAM stands for Random Access Memory, and if you’ve ever opened a lap- or desktop computer, you’ve seen it. In the image above, you see modern RAM sticks for desktop PCs. They have a sleek casing that functions as a heat spreader. However, unless you’re a high-powered overclocker, this is mostly about looks (and making them easier to install.) Laptops, meanwhile, often have more basic RAM sticks, as space concerns are paramount....

Linux Mint 21.1 “Vera” was released on December 20, 2022, a full 14 days after the beta appeared. The popular Ubuntu-based distribution’s intuitive desktop environments make it especially popular among newcomers to Linux. Let’s see what Mint 21.1 has in store. What Is Linux Mint? Linux Mint is one of the most successful distributions based on Ubuntu. And with the number of Ubuntu derivatives out there, that’s saying something. Linux Mint must be doing a lot of things right—at least, according to its passionate user base....

If you’ve recently picked up a selfie stick to use with your Android device you may have run into a significant problem: the trigger button doesn’t actually take a photo (but instead zooms the camera in). Read on as we help straighten things out and get you back to taking photos with an extended reach. Editor’s Note: We’re sorry. Yes, we wrote an article about how to use the Wand of Narcissus selfie sticks....

If you are using a locally installed mail client, you may have noticed that the size of an email seems to be a bit larger than the files you have attached to it. Why is that and is it a cause for concern? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a confused 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....