Are there Wi-Fi dead zones in your house? Before you do anything drastic, you might be able to fix it by simply moving your router. This sounds fake, because Wi-Fi seems like magic—something that can only be made better by wizards who understand its mysterious ways. But Wi-Fi isn’t magic. Your laptop and iPad connect to the Internet using a century old technology: radio waves. And radio waves have limits....
In photography, the “dynamic range” is the difference between the darkest and lightest tones in an image, generally pure black and pure white. It’s more often used to talk about the maximum dynamic range a camera is capable of. RELATED: What Is a “Stop” in Photography? Dynamic range is measured in “stops”. An increase of one stop equals a doubling of the brightness level. The human eye can perceive about 20 stops of dynamic range in ideal circumstances....
Fuchsia a totally new operating system, currently in the very early stages of development at Google. How does it differ from Android and Chrome, and might it replace either one? Let’s break it down. What Is This Thing? Fuchsia first popped up on the tech world’s radar in mid-2016, when an unannounced open source project from Google appeared on the GitHub repository. According to initial inspection by the technology press, it was designed to be a “universal” operating system, capable of running on everything from low-power smartwatches to powerful desktops....
Microsoft won’t be offering a free Windows 10 upgrade to any old Windows Vista PCs you might have around. Only Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs get to join the new Windows 10 era for free. But Windows 10 will certainly run on those Windows Vista PCs. After all, Windows 7, 8.1, and now 10 are all more lightweight and faster operating systems than Vista is. The Cost RELATED: Windows 10 Is Almost Here: Here’s What You Need to Know...
There’s quite a bit Android Auto and CarPlay can do that your run-of-the-mill infotainment system can’t. For starters, you get hands-free controls powered by the latest iterations of Google Assistant or Siri (depending on which OS you choose). You also get access to a range of familiar apps via the Boss BE7ACP-CFT’s big 7-inch touchscreen, including maps, music, and phone. You even get regular software updates to patch bugs and introduce new features over time....
If you like to keep a close eye on your laptop’s battery charge level, then you may be looking for a built-in way to help monitor it while you are busy working. Is there one or do you need a custom solution? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a battery monitoring 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....
Photoshop has dozens of different, powerful tools, each with their own uses. You can use the spot healing brush to clean up blemishes or the brush tool to change the color of someone’s eyes. In the toolbar on the left hand side of the Photoshop screen, you can see some of the main tools you’ll use, but did you know that there’s a second, hidden layer with even more tools?...
Life360 is a service designed to help families keep track of each other. Because families can see exactly where each other are, Life360 also had the same data. Unfortunately for its users, the company sold that information to various brokers. The company said it sold this data to keep its core offerings free to its users. Of course, your privacy has value, and you could argue that it’s worth more than a few dollars a month a service like this typically charges....
Passive noise reduction, active noise cancellation, sound isolation… The world of headphones has become quite advanced in giving you your own private sound bubble. Here’s how these different technologies work. Physical Headphone Types Let’s briefly discuss the different types of headphones out there before we get into noise reduction. Supra-aural These are your run-of-the-mill headphones that are padded and sit on your ear. It’s like having a small speaker right next to you, and they’re not too large....
You send and receive it everyday, it’s instantaneous, and it doesn’t cost a thing. It’s email, one of the most important tools of today. Let’s take a look at how it works, under-the-hood and in normal language. What Exactly Is Email? Electronic mail (abbreviated as e-mail, email, E-Mail, etc.) is a very old form of computer-based communication. A long time ago – in technological, not human, terms – computers were giant machines....
If you and your team or coworkers use a shared Google Drive, you may want quick and easy access to it. In just a few minutes, you can add this shared drive to File Explorer on Windows. This is a convenient option because it eliminates the need to open your browser, sign in to Google Drive, and navigate to the item in the shared drive that you need. Just pop open File Explorer and go....
A bibliography might be a necessary part of your essay, research paper, or academic piece for including your references. If you create your document in Google Docs, you can automatically insert a bibliography with your citations. By using the Google Docs built-in bibliography tool, you can ensure that your sources are presented correctly per MLA, APA, or Chicago style. And once you insert the references, you can make edits if you need to remove a source....
The SkyBell HD is a video doorbell that lets you see a live video view of who’s at your door, and even chat with them through the speaker. But if your internet connection isn’t that great here’s how to optimize the video quality so the stream is more bearable. RELATED: How to Blink Your Lights When Someone Rings Your Doorbell While your router may be located close to the SkyBell, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the SkyBell will get a good signal....
If you snap photos with your DSLR long enough, it’s bound to happen: dust will find its way onto your camera’s sensor and begin marring your beautiful photos. Read on as we walk you through a safe multi-step process to return your camera sensor to a factory floor shine. Why Do I Want to Do This? The inside of a digital camera is a veritable dust magnet. Every time you swap lenses you’re effectively inviting particles of dust to swirl right in and stick, courtesy of the electrostatic charge the interior of the camera carries, to the mirror, body chamber, and the camera’s sensor....
If you use any Google services—Gmail, Drive, Photos, Google+, etc.—then you undoubtedly have a Google Profile. When you set up your Gmail account, you included information about yourself, like your name, birthday, and even places you’ve lived. If you haven’t taken the necessary steps to ensure this information stays private, then it could be out there for the whole world to see. This information expands when you use more Google services....
MP4 is a widely-used video format; you can grab MP4 files off YouTube, Vimeo, and many other online video websites. But what if you have a video of a song you love, and want to extract just the music? Read on to see two different ways to do just that. The Power-User Way: Using Foobar2000 Foobar2000 is a lean, free and incredibly versatile audio player. Setting it up for audio conversion requires a little bit of work, but this is a one-time operation....
iOS 14 and higher lets you put widgets on your iPhone home screen. And thanks to third-party apps, you can actually create your own widgets. Not only do you get new functionality on your home screen, but you can also create it in your own unique style. RELATED: How to Add and Remove Widgets from the Home Screen on iPhone Using widgets, you can add reminders, calendar, photos, battery, and a lot more to the home screen....
At this writing, you can only customize CarPlay on your iPhone, not the touch screen in your car. This is to prevent you from having an accident because you’re messing with the touch screen. Also, you can only customize CarPlay after you link your iPhone to a vehicle that supports it. To get started, tap the Gear icon on your iPhone to open “Settings.” Scroll down and tap “General.”...
If you enjoy listening to the news on the radio while you’re on your way to work, you can get a head start by having your Google Home tell you the news while you get ready in the morning. However, there are many news sources you can choose from, so here’s how to customize what you want to listen to. RELATED: How to Set Up Google Home To start, open up the Google Home app on your smartphone and tap on the Devices button in the top-right corner of the screen....
Instagram’s Favorites feed shows you posts only from people on your Favorites list, in chronological order. Instagram will generate an automatic Favorites list based on your activity, but you can tweak that list just like the Close Friends list for your Instagram Stories. What Is Instagram’s Favorites Feed? In addition to the default Home feed, Instagram is adding two new feed views: Following and Favorites. Instagram’s default “Home” feed shows posts based on your interests and activity by including those from the people you don’t follow....
