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Encoding files in HEIF (using the .HEIC extension) and HEVC (using the .MOV extension) requires a bit more processing power, so this default setting is only on the iPhone 7 and newer and most modern iPads. Also, it’s worth noting that files in these newer formats are about half the size of JPG and MP4 files of similar quality. While HEIF and HEVC are great in theory, they aren’t as widely supported as JPG and MP4 yet (which are essentially universal at this point)....

Below, we’ll run you through three different ways of getting the most out of your Mac’s Eject key. Some of them will require you to download additional apps, and some won’t. But they’re all pretty great and, best of all, make a once-useless key more useful. Using Features Built Into macOS macOS has its own set of keyboard shortcuts that take advantage of the eject key and are enabled out of the box....

Originally, Dropbox offered a simple folder that allowed you to easily share files between machines. Now, Dropbox wants you to use its own full-blown file manager named the “Dropbox desktop app.” Here’s how to get the old Dropbox folder back. First, open Dropbox. Click the Dropbox icon in the Windows taskbar system tray or on the Mac menubar. The Dropbox window will pop up. Click on your account’s avatar (which may also look like a circle with your initials in it)....

With iPhone and iPad, particularly the former, iMessage is integral to the way we communicate. It’s likely one of the most used apps for a lot of us. Emoji users love it, but did you know you can easily use words to call up Emoji? One of the great things about iPhone and iPad is that their onscreen keyboards make it possible to quickly and easily switch to a host of Emoji that you can enter with a tap, but there are some other ways to send Emoji via Messages, and one of them, in particular, is super fast....

Android isn’t largely thought of as a desktop operating system, but if you’re curious about how Google’s mobile OS works, running it on a device you already have isn’t a bad idea. This will give you an idea of what to expect on a phone or tablet, all without making a single change to your laptop or desktop since you can easily do this from a flash drive or memory card....

If you make cool handmade items for friends and family and want to grow your market a bit, opening up an Etsy shop is an excellent way for the world to see (and buy) your work. Here’s how to set one up. Keep in mind that you’re required to collect and remit sales tax in some states when selling either tangible or digital items. And to collect and pay sales tax, you need a sales permit....

So you got yourself a shiny new iPhone, but it’s all…. different. Apple’s 2018 iPhones, along with iPhone X, are a huge departure from everything that came before, and we’re going to tell you how to use them. You don’t need to have been keeping the closest of eyes on the iPhone over the last couple of years to know that Apple has been changing things up. The iPhone X ushered in a new wave of iPhones that are sans Home button, and that changes the way the iPhone works in many more ways than just how you back out of an app....

The iCloud ecosystem is complicated, and it’s hard to know how much of your data is safe in the “cloud” and synced across your devices. We’ll walk through the process of setting up and explain what each feature does. How to Sign Into iCloud When you first set up your Mac, you should have been prompted to sign in with an iCloud account. If you’ve already set that up, you’re good to go, but if you’re not signed in you’ll need to sign in from the iCloud settings....

When you like a post, refresh your feed, or perform a similar activity in the Facebook app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone, a sound will play. If you find these sounds annoying, there’s a way to disable them. We’ll show you how. RELATED: How to Add a Different Reaction to a Facebook Post (Like a Heart or Emoji) Disable Facebook App Sounds To start, open the Facebook app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone....

Thanks to AirPlay, you can wirelessly extend or mirror your Mac’s screen to an external display such as an Apple TV, certain smart TVs, or other devices running AirPlay receiver software. Here’s how to use it. What Is AirPlay? AirPlay is Apple’s name for the company’s proprietary wireless media streaming protocol. AirPlay lets Apple devices such as Macs, iPhones, and iPads stream audio and video over a local network to an AirPlay-compatible receiver device without the need for audio or video cables....

Why Switch from Liking to Bookmarking? Over the past couple of years, Twitter has slowly changed the behavior of the Like button (previously known as Favorite). It used to be a way of showing appreciation for a post. It was also a workaround for saving tweets and for automating tasks using services like IFTTT. Now, the Like feature is used quite publicly, and it factors into Twitter’s recommendation engine. When someone in your circle likes someone else’s tweet, it shows up on your feed....

Using WhatsApp Web, you connect your smartphone to a computer or a browser. As long as both devices are close to one another, you can use your computer to send messages via WhatsApp on your phone. You can use WhatsApp Web from any desktop browser (all major browsers like Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera are supported) or any platform. You’ll also get notifications for new messages. If you want a dedicated app, you can use the WhatsApp Desktop application for Windows and macOS....

If you’re out and about and there’s no free Wi-Fi available, you can use your iPhone’s internet connection on another device, like a laptop or tablet. This feature is called “Personal Hotspot” on the iPhone (also known as “tethering”), and you can use it over Wi-Fi or USB. What You Need to Know About Tethering RELATED: How to Tether Your Android Phone and Share Its Internet Connection with Other Devices...

Need to create a new partition, or re-format an external drive? There’s no need to hunt down paid partition managers or disk-management boot disks: your Mac includes a built-in partition manager and disk management tool known as Disk Utility. Disk Utility is even accessible from Recovery Mode, so you can partition your Mac’s hard drive without having to create and load up any special bootable tools. Accessing Disk Utility RELATED: How to Use macOS’ Spotlight Like a Champ...

Some older sites have strict browser requirements, sometimes even forcing you to be on Windows despite running perfectly fine on other browsers. The browser required most of the time is Internet Explorer, which doesn’t run on Mac, and isn’t even the default on Windows anymore. How to Get Around Browser Restrictions The way a website knows what browser you’re using is by using a value called the “user agent”—a piece of data that’s sent with every request you make to a website, telling the server what browser and operating system you’re using....

Apple bundles plenty of utilities with macOS, but there are some other useful tools you should download to get the most out of your Mac. Here are some picks many Mac fans swear by. Magnet: Keep Your Windows Organized Apple still hasn’t included a Windows-like “Aero-snap” feature in macOS that allows you to organize your workspace quickly while you work. Fortunately, the developer community has solved this issue numerous times, and Magnet ($2) is one of the best solutions....

The Galaxy Z Flip is Samsung’s most popular folding phone by a long shot — the company said 70% of all the foldable devices it sold in 2021 were Flip phones — so you might expect some impressive upgrades this year. However, the Flip 4 is a relatively minor update, much like the Galaxy Z Fold 4 that was announced at the same time. The core design is unchanged from the Flip 3, with a design that folds in half like the flip phones of yesteryear....

The Launch lineup of keyboards is currently comprised of the Launch Lite, with 70 keys, and the Launch, with 84 keys and a function row. Now, System76 is launching a version with a fuller set of 105 keys, including a numpad, that it’s dubbing the Launch Heavy. The keyboard is a great option for those who were looking at everything System76’s keyboards were bringing to the table, but couldn’t settle with anything less than a full-size keyboard....

When using a capture card, the source of the audio-visual signal is going to be a game console. While consoles starting with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have built-in broadcasting and gameplay recording features, they’re often limited and sometimes even block gameplay from viewers. A capture card not only bypasses the console limitations but also allows you to customize your stream using your PC and broadcasting software (such as OBS or SLOBS)....

What Happened to the Dessert Names? If you’re a long-time Android user, you likely know that Google typically gives new versions of Android a dessert name. That changed this year. Google announced several weeks back that it was updating the Android brand and its naming strategy. With this change, the new version of Android is now called Android 10. This numbering strategy will be used going forward, but Google plans to keep the dessert names for future internal development builds....