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Equipping your home with all sorts of smarthome products can get expensive quickly, depending on what you want. Here’s how much you can expect to spend on devices when you’re just starting out. RELATED: 6 Smarthome Safety Features You Should Enable Right Now Let’s get this out of the way right now: Smarthome devices are not cheap, even if you’re only buying a few things. Furthermore, it’s very easy to spend thousands of dollars if you plan to equip your entire home with smarthome gadgetry....

Due to the fragmented nature of Android, changing your fonts on different Android manufacturers and versions will vary. The steps below are confirmed to work on a Samsung device running Android 9 Pie. Changing Built-In Font Settings Some Android devices and versions have built-in settings to allow you to change your font style. If your phone or tablet doesn’t have these options, you won’t be able to change the font style without rooting your device, which isn’t something we recommend....

If you only pay attention to the headlines that Microsoft wants you to keep your eye on, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Windows 10 has been a universal success. So far, Redmond’s latest OS has been installed on around 72 million systems around the globe, and for the most part, has been met with overwhelmingly positive reactions from both the press and the public. But what if Windows 10’s many privacy violations, annoying Start menu, and bogus apps are too much for you to bear?...

Discord is a quickly growing text and voice chat application, aimed at gamers in particular. Its sleek and simple design makes it an excellent alternative to older apps like Teamspeak and Skype. Discord has taken a lot of inspiration from Teamspeak’s extensive customization and management options but has buried some of those options within the interface. Luckily, it’s pretty simple to get started. How Do I Create a Discord Server?...

Starting with the May 2019 Update, Windows 10 will reserve about 7 GB of your device’s storage for updates and optional files. This will ensure easy installation of updates in the future—but you can recover that space if you want. What is Reserved Storage? Windows requires a certain amount of free disk space to update. Updates will fail to install if your PC doesn’t have enough free space. With the recent May 2019 Update, Microsoft aims to fix this problem by reserving disk space for future updates....

Netflix’s auto-playing previews are one of its most annoying features. While browsing through Netflix for something to watch, you’ll be blasted with video and sound. Now, Netflix finally lets you disable these previews so you can browse in peace. To access this option, head to Netflix’s website in a web browser. This option is only available through a web browser, but it applies to all your devices once you’ve changed it....

While laptop touchpads can be useful—especially those that support gestures—they can also be annoying. They’re just too easy to accidentally hit when you’re typing. If you use an external mouse, it’s even more annoying because you don’t need the touchpad at all. Here’s how to disable the touchpad when you use an external mouse. Disable the Touchpad Automatically When You Connect a Mouse Having Windows automatically disable your touchpad when you connect an external mouse is the solution most people will want to use....

Embedding an informational podcast in your PowerPoint can be an invaluable way to enhance a presentation. Here’s how to add podcasts to your slideshow from your computer or from the web. Embedding Downloaded Podcasts from Your Computer When you think podcast, you might think of an audio presentation that’s stored on the internet. However, podcasts are simply audio files, so if the show is downloaded onto your computer, the process is as simple as uploading music to PowerPoint....

Contact details stored in an Excel Worksheet can be easily exported and then imported into Outlook. Once the Excel file is saved to a CSV format, you can import it into your Outlook contacts list. Save Your Contacts as a CSV File The contacts list below is stored in an Excel worksheet. Ensure your Excel spreadsheet is labeled in a similar fashion. To export the document as a CSV, first click “File” to open the menu....

This is essential for hooking up new devices to a network. Whether you’ve misplaced your home network’s password, or you’re visiting someone and don’t want to ask them for the password a second time, here’s how you can find it. First: Check Your Router’s Default Password If your router is still using the default username and password, it should be easy to find. Modern Wi-Fi routers — and the combined router/modem units offered by many Internet service providers — come with a default Wi-Fi network name and password....

Chromebooks are great because they’re simple, secure, and stable. If you’re the type who likes to tinker, however, you can deviate from that stable bit by enabling experimental features. While some of the tweaks we cover here are specific to Chromebooks, others are also available in the Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux. We’ll specify which as we discuss them. Time to get your hands dirty! RELATED: Should You Buy a Chromebook?...

The Easy Way: Install a Browser Extension We recommend using the GoodTwitter extension—available for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox—for this. Install the extension, refresh Twitter, and you’re done. This extension is open-source, so you can see what it does on GitHub. Whenever you access Twitter.com, it sends a user agent saying you’re using Internet Explorer 11. Twitter sends the old, classic web interface to users of this older browser. Skip the Browser Extension: Change Your User Agent If you’d rather do this without the GoodTwitter extension, all you have to do is change your browser’s user agent to Internet Explorer 11 while it’s accessing Twitter....

By default, new Macs open a “Recents” folder when you open a new Finder window. If you don’t want to see your recent files every time you open a window (or see it on the sidebar), you can hide or disable it. Here’s how. What Is the “Recents” Folder on a Mac? As you might have guessed, the “Recents” folder in macOS is not an actual folder location. It is a smart folder consisting of an automatic Spotlight search for your most recently used files....

“Increase Contrast” is one of the many accessibility features in macOS. It helps users with low and impaired vision read the computer’s display more easily, but anyone can use the feature to make the interface more legible. Once enabled, every UI element (whether it’s a just a text box or a button) has a pronounced black border around it. This makes it much easier to locate a button and to know where one section of an app ends, and when another begins....

If you’re itching give Android a try but don’t necessarily want use your whole computer for the task, the best option is to run it in a virtual machine using VirtualBox. It’s actually pretty easy to set up, and will offer you the full Android experience in a matter of a few minutes. Let’s do this thing. RELATED: How to Run Android on Your Computer You’ll need a couple of things to get started:...

RELATED: How to Check AirPods Battery on iPhone, Apple Watch, and Mac Use the Charging Case to See If Your AirPods Are Charging If you don’t have access to your iPhone or iPad, use your charging case to find out if your AirPods are charging. On your charging case, you have a status light, which changes its color depending on various situations. When your AirPods are in the case:...

Updating a driver on your PC doesn’t always work out well. Sometimes, they introduce bugs or simply don’t run as well as the version they replaced. Luckily, Windows makes it easy to roll back to a previous driver in Windows 10. Here’s how. While driver updates generally go pretty well, that’s not always the case. Often, updated versions introduce new features or fix bugs, but sometimes they bring new problems of their own....

Two-factor authentication is an excellent way to make sure your account is secure, but having to input a code every single time you need to log in can be a real pain. Thanks to Google’s new code-less “Prompt” authentication, however, getting access to your Google account can be a lot simpler—you just need access to your phone. Essentially, instead of sending a code, the new “Prompt” actually sends a push notification to your phone asking if you’re trying to log in....

Whole-house audio solutions are expensive, and often difficult to set up. Today we’re going to take you from a no-house audio system to a whole-house audio system in matter of minutes with the Google Chromecast Audio. RELATED: How to Set Up a New Sonos Speaker Speaker setups that play the same music throughout your house typically range from sort-of-expensive to really expensive. On the sort of expensive side you can buy multiple $99 Apple Airport Express relay stations to connect your speakers via AirPlay....

Why Are Companies Listening to These Recordings? Tech companies have employees—or, more often, contractors—listen to snippets of the conversations you have with voice assistants and other services. These are anonymized, which means the contractors can’t see your name or any personal information. Most conversations are never listened to. But companies may have a contractor listen to a few seconds of recordings later and see how the assistant did. For example, if the assistant didn’t understand your question or provided a wrong answer, the contractor can note what happened....