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“Our password database was stolen yesterday. But don’t worry: your passwords were encrypted.” We regularly see statements like this one online, including yesterday, from Yahoo. But should we really take these assurances at face value? The reality is that password database compromises are a concern, no matter how a company may try to spin it. But there are a few things you can do to insulate yourself, no matter how bad a company’s security practices are....

On Linux, the Root user is equivalent to the Administrator user on Windows. However, while Windows has long had a culture of average users logging in as Administrator, you shouldn’t log in as root on Linux. Microsoft tried to improve Windows security practices with UAC – you shouldn’t log in as root on Linux for the same reason you shouldn’t disable UAC on Windows. Why Ubuntu Uses Sudo Discouraging users from running as root is one of the reason why Ubuntu uses sudo instead of su....

I like those movies as much as the next fella. But some filmmakers do make a sincere effort to imagine other realities and technologies that inspire in the way classic science fiction does. It doesn’t mean the films have to be the on-screen equivalent of reading an MIT paper on quantum entanglement or something, just that they spin a decent yarn inspired by actual science. The below are a few slightly less commercial selections, instead of obvious choices like Interstellar or 2001 or Chef, that science fiction movie where Jon Favreau dates both Scarlett Johansson and Sofia Vergara....

CyanogenMod was formerly the most popular custom ROM for Android devices. Unfortunately, a short-lived effort at making the ROM the basis of a business-to-business software company sank the entire CyanogenMod team and its former assets, including the name and community servers. But all isn’t lost: many of the original developers have jumped into the new LineageOS project—a direct follow-up to CyanogenMod. While the extensive device support isn’t quite what it used to be, Lineage is still the first stop for up-to-date community ROMs for many users....

Not only can you do this with your Ubuntu Live CD, you can do it right out of the box – no additional software needed! The program we’ll use is called dd, and it’s included with pretty much all Linux distributions. dd is a utility used to do low-level copying – rather than working with files, it works directly on the raw data on a storage device. Note: dd gets a bad rap, because like many other Linux utilities, if misused it can be very destructive....

PowerShell can be extremely useful for a lot of everyday tasks as is, but if you need to tweak some functions with a bit of safety in mind, then how do you define a function so that it requires elevation? 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....

Data is data…except when it’s not. T-Mobile makes things a little confusing by giving you a certain amount of data, then offering unlimited music and video streaming that doesn’t count against the allowance–but only for certain services. Most T-Mobile Plans Include These Features Do you use T-Mobile as your cellular provider? Then you probably have these features, known as Music Freedom and Binge On. Some older plans may not have them, though, so be sure to check which T-Mobile plan you have and what features are included before counting on this....

The stock market can be a scary place, especially if you’re just getting into trading or investing. However, some smartphone apps help decrease the barrier-to-entry and make it easy to get going. Robinhood is my favorite. Disclaimer: We are not a personal finance blog, so we are not offering advice on what stocks you should trade, or whether trading or investing in individual stocks is the right choice for you....

Because of its functions and features, Excel is a great application for budgeting along with managing your money. If you already use it for finances, make your spreadsheet even more effective by calculating loan elements like payments, interest, or terms. Maybe you are contemplating a new car loan and want to know the payment ahead of time. You can use Excel to adjust the interest rate and payment term to see what you can afford....

If you’ve created playlists on Spotify, you can add a personal touch by adding a custom cover image. Here’s how to do it on iPhone, Android, Mac, PC, and more. Before we begin, you should know that you cannot change the cover image for Spotify playlist images created by others. This includes algorithm-based playlists such as Daily Mix as well as playlists created by people you follow. How to Change a Spotify Playlist Picture on iPhone Spotify lets you quickly change the playlist picture on iPhone....

With a new battery in hand, it’s time to change out the dead one in your AirTag. Start by holding your AirTag with the white plastic side down and the metal case with the Apple logo facing up. Next, place two fingers on the metal side, press down (while applying pressure from the plastic half), and rotate counter-clockwise. You can now remove the metal lid. When you do, you’ll find the tracker’s CR2032 battery....

Networked, or IP, security cameras are readily available and, with each new generation of products, increasingly sophisticated. Digging through the available options can be overwhelming though; read on as we walk you through the process with a handy security camera shopping checklist. Rather than tell you which camera or camera system to buy, we’re going to help build a framework you can use to assess if a particular camera or stable of cameras is a good fit for your needs....

Companies are making it harder and harder to actually get a human being who can help you solve a problem. Call them, and you’ll often end up in a phone tree, asked to enter number after number or speak your issue for an automated system. But there are still humans working in most of those companies’ customer service departments–you just have to know how to get to them. Here are a few easier ways to get what you want....

Cortana now lets you create and manage lists with your voice, and even lets you connect to Wunderlist if you want. Here’s how to do it. Cortana in Windows 10 is billed as a personal assistant—much like Siri on Apple devices—and to be sure, you can do some pretty useful things with it. Until recently, though, Cortana was not able to perform one of the more tasks you might expect of a personal assistant—making lists....

An ISO file is a complete disc image of a CD or DVD bundled into a single file. You can mount an ISO file to make it available as a virtual CD or DVD, allowing you to convert physical discs to virtual ones. ISO files are particularly useful if you want to use old game or software discs on a modern computer that doesn’t have a disc drive. Although, you should note that some DRM copy protection schemes won’t work with ISO files, unless you jump through additional hoops....

In Microsoft Excel, it’s a common task to refer to cells on other worksheets or even in different Excel files. At first, this can seem a little daunting and confusing, but once you understand how it works, it’s not so hard. In this article, we’ll look at how to reference another sheet in the same Excel file and how to reference a different Excel file. We’ll also cover things like how to reference a cell range in a function, how to make things simpler with defined names, and how to use VLOOKUP for dynamic references....

It’s very easy for your Gmail inbox to get out of control. Labels are a great way to keep things organized, but they’re handy for more than that. We’ll show you how to send all the emails under a label to the trash. It’s a lot easier to batch delete a bunch of emails organized under a label than to do it manually, page by page. You don’t have to worry about accidentally deleting the wrong emails, either....

More and more laptops these days are coming with super high resolution screens, which means Windows needs to “scale” the interface to make things readable. If you don’t like the default scale level, you can change it yourself. This is essentially a “zoom” of sorts—scaling icons and text so that the display is still running at native resolution, but all the on-screen content is larger without getting distorted. RELATED: How to Make Windows Work Better on High-DPI Displays and Fix Blurry Fonts...

Yes, 1Password can store your passwords and be your default authenticator app, too. Before we show you how to set up two-factor authentication codes for various websites in 1Password, let’s start by talking about the pros and cons of using 1Password as your primary authenticator. Should You Use a Password Manager to Generate One-Time Passwords? If you’re using a password manager, you’re already on the right track for the security of your online accounts....

What’s New in PowerShell 7? The latest version, PowerShell 7, builds on the previous PowerShell Core 6.1. It continues to support cross-platform deployment and adds a slew of new features, cmdlets, and bug fixes. Some of the more significant new features include: Pipeline parallelization with ForEach-Object: Iterate through items of a collection in parallel with the new -Parallel parameter or set a maximum thread count (the default is five) with the -ThrottleLimit parameters....