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What Is Log4j? The log4j bug (also called the log4shell vulnerability and known by the number CVE-2021-44228) is a weakness in some of the most widely used web server software, Apache. The bug is found in the open-source log4j library, a collection of pre-set commands programmers use to speed up their work and keep them from having to repeat complicated code. Libraries are the bedrock of many, if not most, programs as they’re great timesavers....

Anyone with a digital camera has been there at some point: You take a photo, you check it later, and the color are ghastly–the people are sickly looking, white shirts look blue-ish, and the image just looks unappealing. White balance can fix this. Understanding camera white balance is a cornerstone of taking good photos with a digital camera. Poor white balance means, at worst, a ruined photo, and, at best, a lot of time wasted post processing your image in an attempt to fix what you could have fixed in-camera....

The last few years have seen the rise of closed platforms — operating systems that only allow you to install software approved by the operating system’s developer. However, many popular platforms — even mobile ones — are still open platforms. Platforms with app stores can be considered open platforms if they allow you to install apps from outside the app store, a process referred to as “sideloading.” Even if a platform has a restrictive app store, sideloading could allow users to exit the walled garden if they so choose....

“Smart fridges” like the $6000 Samsung “Family Hub” refrigerator promise to be everything from an entertainment center to a social hub. But please, don’t buy these things. Buying a smart fridge is a dumb idea. I saw the “Family Hub” fridge at CES 2016, and was assured by a Samsung representative that it wasn’t a joke. It is a serious product you can now buy in stores, but it probably shouldn’t be....

Better yet, if a shortcut doesn’t exist for a certain task, you can create a custom one on macOS. Moving the Cursor You can use the arrow keys to move the cursor around and press Enter to start a new paragraph. Using the Option and Command keys as modifiers, you can move the cursor in the following ways: Option+Left Arrow: To the beginning of the previous word. Option+Right Arrow: To the beginning of the next word....

mcBackup 3.0 for Windows 7 This handy utility will backup WMC scheduled recordings,channel lineups, and Recoded TV . The current version is currently a Beta and is only designed to work with Windows 7 Media Center and does work with extenders. There are versions for 32 & 64-bit systems so download and install the one which is right for your system (links below). Make sure you’re closed out of WMC and run through the installer as normal accepting the defaults....

Most of us never give much thought to our keyboards as long as they work well, but if you stop to think about it for a moment, do they only send signals to our computers or is there an active back-and-forth process at 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....

The Pixel 7 Pro brings together a professional camera system, a streamlined user interface, and a sleek design that might be enough to convert Apple loyalists. Its camera setup and high-speed performance alone justify the $899 price point if you’re looking for the latest pro handset. Since I’ve been using the Google Pixel 7 Pro, I haven’t been able to put it down, and there’s very little to complain about when using it....

You know how much electricity you use overall each month, because you pay the bill. But, you can also figure out how much electricity each appliance uses individually and how much it contributes to your total usage. RELATED: How to Optimize Your Home’s Airflow to Save Money on Your A/C Unless you have some fancy equipment monitoring every electrical connection in your house, you likely have no idea what the energy usage is of individual appliances....

Windows 7 added PowerShell, a more powerful command-line shell and scripting language than the Command Prompt. Since Windows 7, PowerShell has become more prominent, with it even becoming the default choice in Windows 10. PowerShell is more complicated than the traditional Command Prompt, but it’s also much more powerful. The Command Prompt is dramatically inferior to shells available for Linux and other Unix-like systems, but PowerShell competes favorably. In addition, most Command Prompt commands are usable in PowerShell, whether natively or through aliases....

Windows doesn’t do the best job of scaling on high-resolution monitors. And if you have multiple monitors with different pixel densities, things can get even more confusing. Thankfully, Windows 10 has settings that can help. Say your laptop is super high-resolution, and requires scaling to keep icons and text from looking tiny. But you’ve hooked it up to an external monitor with more old-school PPI, with no scaling necessary. You want text and other elements to look the same size on both screens, even though they have very different pixel densities....

Sensing the opportunity to set up its own community of streamers, Valve has added the option to easily broadcast your games to friends or anyone who wants to watch using the Steam client as its own streaming client. This makes it easy for users to quickly get themselves up and streaming with just a few settings adjustments, and here’s everything you need to know to get started. Set Your Account Up for Streaming To start, open up your account settings by clicking on the “Steam” option in the menu, and selecting “Settings” from the drop-down menu....

Alexa is great to have for controlling your smarthome and asking various questions, but she can also call and message your friends and family. Here’s how it works and how to set it up. First, you’ll need to update the Alexa app to the latest version, so if you haven’t already, head to the app store on your phone and get the update if you haven’t updated the app within the last few weeks....

If you’re looking for a frictionless way to to get your movies and TV shows from your PC to your HDTV, Plex Media Center + Chromecast is the most elegant and hassle-free way to get the job done. Why You’d Want to Do This There are a multitude of ways to get media from your computer onto your television set. You can hook your computer right up to your TV with the proper video cable....

In the Windows XP days, changing the icon for a specific file type—such as TXT or PNG—was easy. But since Windows 7, you’ve actually had to do some Registry hacking to make it happen. Here’s a great little freeware utility that makes it much faster and easier. For whatever reason, recent versions of Windows have developed a habit of not letting us easily customize icons for anything but folders and shortcuts....

By default, Windows 10’s lock screen times out and switches off your monitor after one minute. If you’d like it to stick around longer than that — say, if you have background picture you like looking at or you enjoy having Cortana handy — there’s a simple Registry hack that will add the setting to your power options. First, you’ll need to tackle the Registry to add the timeout setting to your PC’s power options....

If your work position, company, or any other details that you display in your email signature has changed, you will want to change your signature in your Gmail account to reflect that. It’s easy to do so and we’ll show you how. In Gmail, you can update your current signature to add or remove details from it. If you need more than one signature, you can create and save multiple email signatures as well....

Space. We all want more of it, particularly on our phones and tablets. Sadly, all those apps gobble up space before you know it. You might be able to reclaim a bit of space by clearing your Dropbox cache. When you open the Dropbox app on your mobile device, it caches your folder and file list as well as any images or documents you view. So the next time you access these folders and files, Dropbox doesn’t have to download them again, saving time and data....

Saving Your Changes (Git Stash) Before you fire off a command to reset your repository, you should make sure you’re not losing data you want to save. Git provides a few different kinds of resets. Soft and Mixed resets will reset the repository back to the state it was in at a certain commit (often the HEAD of a branch), but will keep your local changes that you haven’t yet committed....

The process begins on your Samsung Galaxy Watch itself. First, press the “Power Button” to open the app gallery and then tap the “Settings” app (represented by a gear icon) from the list. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the “Settings” menu and tap “Connect to a New Phone.” The next screen will ask you to back up your data. We highly recommend doing this to make the transition as smooth as possible....