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The “OK Google” and “Hey Google” commands can be handy for hands-free tasks, but you might not want to use them. If you’d like to stop your Android device from listening for these Google Assistant hot words, it’s easy to do. If you have Google Nest/Home speakers in your house, it can be annoying to have your Android phone or tablet wake up for the command every time you talk to a speaker, or maybe you just don’t want your handset recording your voice every time it thinks it hears the command....

RELATED: What Are the Sys Rq, Scroll Lock, and Pause Break Keys on My Keyboard? What Does Enabling and Disabling Scroll Lock Do in Excel? When you disable Scroll Lock and press the arrow keys, Excel lets you move between cells in your spreadsheet. For example, if you press the Down Arrow key, you go down a cell in your worksheet. This is usually the default behavior and allows for quick editing....

YouTube has content on almost every topic imaginable, and while some channels are worth hitting the subscribe button, others simply aren’t. If you have subscribed to YouTube channels that you watch anymore, you can unsubscribe following these steps. If your video feed is saturated, you might prefer to try YouTube’s Watch Later feature before you decide to reduce your channel subscriptions. This helps to create a personalized playlist of videos you actually want to watch, rather than letting YouTube decide for itself....

Apple Watch Water Resistance The Apple Watch Series One has a water resistance rating of IPX7. This means it’s splash-proof and should survive a fall into water of up to three feet deep. Leaving it submerged, however, isn’t recommended. If you still have a Series One, taking it swimming with you isn’t the best idea, but the sweat from your workout or a bit of rain won’t harm it. The Apple Watch Series Two and newer are explicitly designed to be worn in water to track swimming workouts....

At the tail-end of 2018, Microsoft announced that it would remove the Clutter feature from Outlook, leaving Focused Inbox to sieve out your less-important mail. I think that’s a potentially worrying change of direction for Microsoft. Yes, on the one hand, you could argue that Focused Inbox competes directly with similar features offered by Gmail and that those only work in the Gmail client, so why not do it. But, you could also argue that, since Outlook has had both the Focused Inbox and Clutter features for a while (and they both have their advantages), there was no really good reason to ditch Clutter....

It’s a Herculean effort to see everything at CES. It’s an equal challenge to pick a favorite thing among the fantastic (and not so fantastic) things on the floor, but here are our personal favorites from CES 2019. I sat down with each of our editors and writers at CES and—after our days in press briefings, meetings, and walking the infinite-feeling convention floors—asked them what their favorite CES find was with an emphasis on something that truly caught their eye....

Stringify, the IFTTT-like service that helped users build in-depth automated tasks, announced today that it’s shutting down. Stringify’s apps will be removed from stores today, with the service being fully deactivated at the end of June. In an email sent to existing users, Stringify says it will continue to support the service until the end of June, at which time it will shut down, and all user data will be deleted....

You might wonder why a portable version is so important… the problem is that the worst malware infections block you from installing malware removal software, and even if you manage to get it installed, most of the time when you try and launch it, you’ll get an error like this one: Note: that’s a real screenshot from a real virus that we cleaned with SUPERAntiSpyware Portable. SUPERAntiSpyware Portable solves this problem by not only giving you a completely portable version of the application, which consists of a single file you can copy to your USB drive without requiring installation, but it also automatically gives you a random filename so the malware can’t detect it as easily....

What Is the “i” Icon on an Apple Watch? Throughout the Apple ecosystem, the “i” icon, which appears as an “i” with a circle around it, simply stands for “information.” It’s used on your iPhone and Apple Watch to display additional information and preferences. The circled “i” is also used for manually pairing and re-pairing your Apple Watch to your iPhone. Where Is the “i” Icon on an Apple Watch? You’ll find the circled “i” in various places on your Apple Watch, typically on the right side of the face or the bottom-right corner....

The alternative to personal cellphones and landlines is VoIP, or Voice over IP, which will give your company a more professional feel and a competitive edge. If you’re looking into separating your personal phone from work, but you aren’t sure if it’s the best decision, look no further. We’ll review some of the reasons why you’ve made the right choice. The Traditional Way: Get a Separate Line If you’ve decided to stop using your personal phone for your business, the traditional way to get a new number was to simply get a separate line....

You can adjust the brightness or set an alarm on your Google Home Hub with a voice command. But if you’re trying to be quiet or there’s a lot of background noise, you can also do these things using a hidden Screen Settings menu. Getting to the screen settings menu is easy. The most difficult part is probably just knowing that it exists. Just swipe up from the bottom of the screen....

Chromebooks can now run Linux desktop apps, offering a whole new universe of software to Chrome OS users. You can install a Linux distribution like Ubuntu on your PC, too. But what applications are available for Linux? Web Browsers (Now With Netflix, Too) Most Linux distributions include Mozilla Firefox as the default web browser. Google also offers an official version of Google Chrome for Linux, and you can even get an “unbranded” open-source version of Chrome named Chromium....

Drivers Are Like Translators For Your Computer At a fundamental level, two main components comprise a computer—software and hardware. The software is your operating system (OS) and any programs and apps you have installed on it. Your motherboard, RAM, mouse, keyboard, printer, and anything else physical connected to your computer make up the hardware. Without any help, the software doesn’t know how to talk to your hardware and vice versa. Hardware drivers are bits of software that teach your OS, programs, and apps how to work with your devices....

Microsoft Outlook lets you create electronic sticky notes that you can display either in Outlook or right on your desktop, letting you get all those real sticky notes off your desk. Before we start, let’s take a moment to remember that writing passwords down on Post-It notes, electronic or otherwise, is just plain bad. We’ve written about password security extensively over the years, so take a moment to pick a password manager and use it....

Every time we talk about the digital cameras, one thing that comes up is the “crop factor” of the sensor. Let’s dig a bit more into it and explain why it matters. Different Cameras, Different Sensors Digital cameras don’t all have identically sized sensors; there are a couple of different standards. The leading standard—used by manufacturers in their professional and high-end cameras—is 35mm or full frame. The sensor is approximately the same size as a piece of 35mm film (36mm x 24mm) which was the most popular film format....

Fiber Internet is the latest change to the way data is transferred around the globe. It’s much faster than cable, way faster than dial-up, and can carry large amounts of data in a single line, often reaching multiple terabits of data transfer fairly easily. Before Fiber: DSL and Cable Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) used the existing telephone lines to transmit data, which were usually made of copper. DSL is slow, old, and has been phased out for the most part in favor of cable, but it remains in some rural areas....

An Economy of Contracted or Independent Work The “gig economy” is a phenomenon defined by a rise in independent or contracted work. According to a Marist poll, one-fifth of American jobs are contracted right now, and half of the US workforce could find themselves doing contract or freelance work over the next decade. But what is an independent contractor? Think of construction, web design, freelance writing, or Uber driving. Workers in these fields aren’t legally defined as “employees....

Are you using Windows 10? If so, Microsoft is installing a new browser on your PC via Windows Update. The new browser is still called Microsoft Edge, but it’s based on the same code as Google Chrome. What Is the New Edge Browser? The new Microsoft Edge is based on the Chromium open-source project. Chromium forms the basis of Google Chrome, so the new Edge feels very similar to Google Chrome....

Optical image stabilization—also known as IS, OIS, or VR—is built into some lenses and cameras. It lets you take photos at slower shutter speeds than you ordinarily could. There are, however, some situations when you shouldn’t use it. Let’s dig in. OIS works by having stabilized elements in either the lens or camera body that move to counteract small motions like the shake of your hands when you’re using a long lens....

Here at How-To Geek, we’re big fans of Photoshop, but there are times when it’s not the right app for the job. Here’s how to tell when you should consider an alternative. Although Photoshop is the king of image editors for lots of good reasons, it’s not without its faults. For example, it’s only available as a subscription service, and it has decades of legacy support and feature bloat. You could even consider its versatility and broad range of options a drawback if you only need to perform a simple task....