Posts

If you suspect there is a hidden Bluetooth device in your house, apartment, or office—or you just lost a Bluetooth-capable device—there’s an easy way to track down its physical location thanks to an app on iPhone and Android. Here’s how to do it. The Bluetooth Beacon All devices with Bluetooth running in an activated state emit a constant signal that can be picked up by other Bluetooth-capable devices. This is how they send data wirelessly—and also how the devices connect to one another....

Menu shortcut keys provide a fast and easy way to navigate through specific applications in Windows. They work by underlining the key to press on menus to activate commands or expand submenus. This feature is disabled by default, but it’s easy to turn on. This feature doesn’t enable shortcut keys everywhere you might expect, but it does work on most of the context menus (those you get by right-clicking files or folders) in Windows and some apps....

Modern computers come loaded with hundreds of processes and services designed to make the operating system run smoothly. Sometimes when you install a program or service, they may interfere with crucial services, resulting in unexpected program crashes, error messages popping up, or slowing down your computer. You could start your computer into Safe Mode, which is a more barebones approach that disables even more drivers or services, but it may disable some things you may be trying to test....

Storage Sense is the Disk Cleanup replacement for the modern world. It frees up space on your computer by deleting things like recycle bin contents, temporary internet files, and app temporary files. This also includes the Downloads folder, but you can change that if you don’t want Storage Sense emptying it. We’ve mentioned before how the Free Up Space tool in Windows 10 will delete your downloads by default (though you can turn it off, too)....

When you open a new Google Sheets spreadsheet, the columns, rows, and individual cells you see will all be a certain size. If you want to see more data in each cell, you’ll need to resize them. Here’s how. Manually Resizing a Column or Row in Google Sheets One of the quickest ways to resize a column or row in Google Sheets is to use your mouse or trackpad to resize it manually....

Face ID is a great addition to iPhone and iPad, and it still feels like magic every time it works. But, just like Touch ID before it, you may need to prevent apps from using it. Here’s how to do that. If you’ve permitted a third-party app to use Face ID as its authentication mechanism, that can be great for making it easier and quicker to sign into anything from your banking app to your shopping list....

Deleted Files Are Normally Recoverable Deleting a file doesn’t actually remove it from your hard drive. It’s all down to the way your filesystem uses inodes. These are the data structures within the filesystem that hold the metadata regarding the files. The name of the file, its position on the hard drive, what attributes and permissions it has, and so on are all stored within an inode. A directory is no more than a file itself....

Here at How-To Geek, we think iOS’s Live Wallpaper feature is pretty neat, although it’s underused. If you don’t want to spend the time to make your own great Live Wallpaper, one of the next best options is to use a GIF. Like with most things on the iPhone, there’s an app for that. In this case, it’s GIPHY, one of the best GIF apps on iOS. Download it and let’s get started....

If Apple Maps is your navigation tool of choice and you prefer avoiding toll roads, staying off the highways, or both, it’s easy to tweak Apple Maps to meet your needs. Whatever your motivation—be it avoiding tolls, highway traffic jams, or just ensuring you drive past the world’s biggest ball of yarn and other curiosities—you just need to jump into the general Settings app on your iPhone to make it happen....

As of August 2021, Github has removed support for using your account password from the Git command line. You can still use HTTPS, but you will need to set up a Personal Access Token to use instead of your password. What Are Personal Access Tokens? Github still chooses to recommend easier-to-use HTTPS endpoints for accessing repos, but their password based security is a major downside. This is why, if you’ve tried to push or pull code using your account password recently, you may have received the following error:...

How much juice do you have left? If you’re using an iPhone 13 (or iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, or iPhone 13 Pro Max), the exact answer isn’t always obvious at a glance. Luckily, there are two ways to quickly see a precise battery percentage on your iPhone 13. Here’s how. How to See iPhone Battery Percentage With a Swipe Let’s face it: The iPhone 13 notch at the top of the screen allows for a bigger screen, but it also cuts down on space for a status bar....

Photography is starting to cause a problem. Photographers—both of the DSLR and smartphone variety—are causing havoc at favorite photo locations and tourist sites. Museums and the like are introducing rules to curb bad behavior but really, it’s on photographers to be respectful—especially if we don’t want stricter rules coming in. Now, we’re not going to talk much about photography and the law. In general, you’re allowed take photos in public places with very few caveats—but check out the specifics of your state or country....

Apple’s phone, tablet, and computer-tracking tools are the best in the business. You can remotely locate your device, disable it with a lock and message that persists through factory resets—the so-called “kill switch”—and wipe it. These features aren’t enabled by default, so you’ll need to ensure the tracking features are enabled ahead of time if you’d ever like to remotely track, lock, or wipe your iPhone, iPad, or Mac....

iPhones and iPads finally group notifications thanks to iOS 12. Multiple notifications from the same app are bundled together, making the notification center less messy and overwhelming. But Apple still lets you “unbundle” notifications for individual apps. For example, you might want to see individual notifications from your favorite chat app in the notification center, making it easier to skim through all your new messages without the additional tap....

Unlocking your Android phone’s bootloader is the first step to rooting and flashing custom ROMs. And, contrary to popular belief, it’s actually fully supported on many phones. Here’s how to unlock your bootloader the official way. Not Every Phone Will Let You Do This There are two kinds of phones in this world: Those that let you unlock your bootloader, and those that don’t. Whether you’re allowed to unlock your bootloader depends on the manufacturer of your phone, the model you have, and even your carrier....

Updates are installed through the Hue app for iPhone, iPad, or Android. They can be installed automatically so you never have to think about it, and we recommend enabling automatic updates if you haven’t already. The update that patches the security hole was released in mid-January of 2020, so there’s a good chance it’s already installed on your hardware. How to Check for and Install Hue Updates To check for updates, open the Hue app on Android, iPhone, or iPad....

Where’s Google Drive on Linux? Despite promising Linux support “coming soon” back in 2012, there’s no indication that Google will ever produce a native Linux client for Google Drive. There are several unofficial third-party solutions, such as InSync, overGrive and ODrive, and some file browsers allow integration with your Google Drive, such as Files in GNOME. The third-party applications are commercial products, requiring either an outright purchase or a subscription. They work well they don’t cost much, and in fact, overGrive does have a free version, offering limited functionality for no cost....

Thanks to the iCloud Keychain, you can view all saved accounts and passwords in the “Passwords” (previously, Passwords & Accounts) section of the “Settings” app. As of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, you also have a built-in two-factor authentication feature in the Passwords section to generate verification codes. The codes will also autofill, just like the saved passwords, when you sign in to your accounts. Keep in mind that using this feature involves a bit of tedious work on the front-end, as you’ll need to set it up for the login of every website and app you wish to secure with two-factor authentication....

How to Pair Your AirPods or AirPods Pro to iPhone and iPad Pairing your new headphones is as simple as it gets. After you unbox your AirPods, hold them near your unlocked iPhone and iPad and flick the case open. Then, press and hold the “Setup” button, which is at the back of the AirPods case. In a couple of seconds, you’ll see a connection prompt on your iPhone or iPad....

Sometimes, you need to log in to a website from a different browser or device, but can’t remember your password. Luckily, if you’ve previously allowed Chrome to save it for Autofill, you can easily recover it on Windows 10, macOS, Chrome OS, or Linux. First, open Chrome. In the upper-right corner of any window, click the three vertical dots. In the menu that appears, click “Settings.” On the “Settings” screen, scroll down to the “Autofill” section and click “Passwords....