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A lot of us are lamenting the removal of the Start button and menu in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. However, a hidden context menu, or what is known as the Win+X menu, has been added. RELATED: How to Edit the Win+X Menu in Windows 8 and 10 Update: This method no longer works. You can, however, add or tweak items in the Win+X menu using this guide instead. The Win+X menu provides access to useful system tools including the Task Manager, Control Panel, Search, Programs and Features, System Settings, Run, Device Manager, among others....

When you create a new instance in EC2, you’ll be given a PEM file that acts as your access key. You’ll have to use this to SSH into the server, so you’ll want to add it to your keychain for easy access. How To Use Your PEM File You can use PEM files manually by adding the -i flag to ssh: This is unwieldy to type every time, so there are a few ways to fix this....

Do you want your computer to automatically run a program, remind you about something, or even automatically send emails? Use the Task Scheduler included with Windows – its interface can be a bit intimidating, but it’s easy to use. The Task Scheduler has a wide variety of uses – anything you want your computer to do automatically, you can configure here. For example, you could use the task scheduler to automatically wake your computer at a specific time....

Google’s Smart Lock for Passwords makes it easy to sync the passwords you have saved in Chrome over to your Android device. Not only will it sync the passwords with Chrome on your phone, but also to supported apps—so you don’t have to remember your password for apps like Netflix or LinkedIn. The thing is, you may not want to auto-login to specific apps. Or any app at all, for that matter....

The Quick Launch bar was introduced in Windows XP, and sat on the far left side of the Taskbar next to the Start button. It provided a quick and easy way to access programs and your desktop. In Windows 7, the Quick Launch bar was removed from the Taskbar, but it’s still available in Windows 7, 8, and 10 if you know how to add it back. Why would you want the Quick Launch bar back when you can pin programs to the Taskbar?...

It’s good practice to change your password routinely. This is especially true for Chromebooks since you use your Google account to log in. Fortunately, changing your password on a Chromebook is pretty easy to do. If you’re using a Chromebook, there’s a good chance you use Google’s services on your other devices. For instance, you can write up a Google Doc on the Chromebook, then read it back later on your iPad, cell phone, or any other device....

Whether you want to fix specific website issues or resolve other problems with your browser, it’s easy to clear Microsoft Edge’s cache on your desktop and mobile devices. You can also get the browser to automatically delete your cache on each exit. We’ll show you how. In addition to clearing the cache, you can delete other browsing data as well, such as site history and cookies. We’ll cover how to do this in the guide below....

If you use Google’s Chrome browser, and chances are you probably do, then you may want to clear your browsing history from time to time. It’s always a good idea to do this for the sake of privacy, and it’s not that difficult to do. Nearly every browser, from Mozilla Firefox to Safari and Microsoft Edge, keeps a history of where you go on the Internet. Most of the time these places are what you would expect them to be, but sometimes you might end up somewhere you didn’t expect to be, and as such, may not want that in your history....

Video formats can be confusing, and some might not work in your video player of choice, especially more obscure formats like MKV. It’s often easier or even necessary to convert them to something more usable, like MP4. Luckily, that conversion is easy to do. Note: We’re using macOS for our examples and screenshots in this article, but all the apps we’re using here work pretty much identically on Windows....

Have you ever wanted to create a custom Google search engine that searches only specific websites? You can easily do this with Google’s Custom Search Engine tool. You can bookmark your search engine and even share it with other people. This trick works similarly to Google’s site: operator, but you won’t have to type the operator every time you search. It’s particularly useful if you want to search a large number of sites at once....

We all have old photos that are important to us. Vacations, family members who are no longer with us, good times in our lives—you know, important stuff. The thing is, pictures fade. The best way to keep these precious memories safe is by digitizing them, and what was once a lengthy process can now be done—with pretty exceptional results—directly from your phone. Obviously, the best way to scan your photos is with a dedicated scanner with the right settings—or maybe by using a photo scanning service like Memories Renewed or DiJiFi....

There are a few different ways to turn off sensors on Android. It’s even possible to turn off all the sensors at once. On a smaller scale, you can toggle off the microphone or camera. We’ll be using a similar approach for location access. RELATED: There Are a Lot of Sensors in Your Phone, Here’s What They Do There are two methods you can use to turn off your devices’ access to your location....

Smartphone app stores are well established at this point, and as much as we love to see new apps become available, that also means the inevitable: sometimes apps go away. Here’s what you can do if your favorites disappear. Why Do Apps Disappear? Before we talk about how you can get apps that are no longer available to download from your phone’s respective app store, let’s first talk about why apps get removed in the first place....

Blue and green screens are used by TV and movie studios to blend two videos by replacing the background with something different. You have that power on your iPhone and iPad and we’re going to show you how to use it. Studios have used blue and green screen for a long time, but you don’t need a huge crew or expensive cameras to make them work. With just an iPhone or an iPad, you can create some spectacular effects by yourself....

Just like apps can misbehave on your phone and tablet, apps can misbehave on the Apple TV. Read on as we show you how to force quit an out of line application on your Apple TV. Note: This tutorial applies to the 2015 4th-generation Apple TV hardware update and the subsequent updates running tvOS. Why And When Do I Want To Do This? The new tvOS optimized apps that port your favorite iOS applications (and some new ones along the way) over to the Apple TV aren’t immune to the occasional glitch, crash, or ghost-in-the-machine funny business anymore than regular iOS applications are....

Virtual machines can use a large amount of disk space. If you want to regain some of that disk space, just deleting files inside the virtual machine won’t help. You’ll need to reclaim that disk space, shrinking the virtual hard disk and making it use less space on your Mac. RELATED: How to Seamlessly Run Windows Programs on Your Mac with Parallels Parallels includes a helpful wizard that will walk you through this....

Tile is a handy tracker that you can use to find your keys, wallet, or anything else you might lose often. If you misplace your stuff while you’re away from home, Tile can send you a notification as soon as it locates your stuff. You’ll need to ask for it, though. Here’s how. RELATED: How to Use Tile to Find Your Keys, Wallet, or Anything Else By default, Tile doesn’t send you a notification every time it finds your stuff....

You can add users in Telegram in two ways: First, by using their phone numbers (either by manually adding them or by sharing your contact book), or by using unique usernames (similar to Twitter). If you and your contacts use the username system, you can actually continue to use Telegram (join groups, subscribe to channels, and more) without ever sharing your phone number. To do this, all you have to do is disable a setting....

The SkyBell HD is a video doorbell that lets you see who’s at the door right from your smartphone and even talk to them without even opening your door. Here’s how to install the unit and set it up. The SkyBell HD is similar to the Ring Doorbell, with one difference: the SkyBell unit must be hooked up to your existing doorbell’s wiring. The Ring Doorbell has the ability to do this, but it also has an internal battery that can power the whole unit itself....

Windows 10 normally puts your laptop into low-power sleep mode when you close the lid. This can be a problem when hooking your laptop up to an external monitor. Use the Control Panel—not Windows 10’s Settings app—to change this behavior. If you do this, be careful! Closing your laptop’s lid and throwing it in your bag while it’s still on could cause some serious problems due to poor circulation or blocking of vents....