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While most smart lights let you control them from your phone, by voice, or through automation, not all smart bulbs are created equal. Here are the different type of smart lights and which ones might be best for you. RELATED: Seven Clever Uses for Philips Hue Lights Smart bulbs come in all different shapes and sizes, but they also connect in different ways depending on which bulbs you use. For the most part, there are three different ways smart bulbs can connect to the internet: using a proprietary hub, connecting directly to Wi-Fi, or using a third-party smarthome hub through Z-Wave or ZigBee....

Ubuntu 19.10 “Eoan Ermine” boasts an upgraded Linux kernel along with faster boot times, updated themes, and experimental ZFS file system support. Whether or not you upgrade, Ermine shows what to expect from Ubuntu’s next LTS release, due April 2020. Should You Upgrade? Ubuntu 19.10 is available for download today, October 17, 2019. Upgrading isn’t mandatory—in fact, most people stick with the long-term service (LTS) releases and upgrade just once every two years when the next one comes out....

What Are Wi-Fi Channels? Wi-Fi uses radio waves to communicate over short distances. Wi-Fi networks can operate on several different channels to help reduce interference. Each channel is a range of frequencies. When several Wi-Fi networks are within range of each other, they can operate on different channels, so they aren’t “talking over” and interfering with each other. 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks can work on a small number of channels: Just channels one through eleven in the USA....

Check the Charging Port Your smartphone’s charging port can quickly fill up with dust, lint, and other debris. If the contacts inside the port become obstructed, the smartphone may not be able to charge properly since it cannot complete the necessary circuit. Take a flashlight and inspect the charging port closely. You can then use a pointy object like a wooden toothpick to clear out anything you find. Frequently plugging in a charging cable can cause the debris to become compacted, so you may need to repeat the process a few times to clean it out completely....

Microsoft promised to stop installing unstable updates when you click “Check for Updates” and now it’s delivering. Rather than automatically installing such updates, Windows gives you a “Download and install now” button. The button started appearing on PCs today. We previously warned that clicking the “Check for Updates” button would often install unstable updates. Windows Update would normally wait to install big updates like Windows 10’s buggy October 2018 Update and monthly cumulative C and D updates....

In Windows 10, Device Manager is an essential utility that helps you configure or troubleshoot hardware on your PC. Here are five ways to open Device Manager when you need it. These aren’t the only ways to do it, but one of these methods is likely to come in handy. Search for Device Manager in the Start Menu One of the quickest ways to open Device Manger is by using the Start menu....

Today Apple announced new Apple Watches and a handful of new iPhones that all have edge-to-edge, curved displays just like the iPhone X does. Here’s everything you need to know. Unlike last year, when the entire event was leaked ahead of time, this year we didn’t know too much ahead of time, but what we did know ended up being pretty accurate. The New Apple Watch Series 4 Was the Star of the Show You’d think that the yearly iPhone update would be the big news, but it really wasn’t—the new Apple Watch has a bigger display with curved edges, and the software has been dramatically updated with new watch faces that take advantage of the new display....

Wait a minute. If we started transitioning to ATSC 3.0 a year ago, then why isn’t anyone talking about it? Why can’t we watch broadcast TV on our phones? Why isn’t my local news station in 4K? What Is ATSC 3.0 and How is it Unique? When ATSC 1.0 (digital television) was announced 25 years ago, it served as a replacement for analog TV signals, and it began the HDTV revolution....

Everyone is talking about fake accounts on Facebook and fake followers on Twitter. LinkedIn hasn’t been part of the conversation, but Microsoft’s social network also has a big problem. LinkedIn Doesn’t Verify Anything We created a fake profile and connected it to a real company. Sadly, it isn’t hard. LinkedIn doesn’t ask for any proof or confirmation of anything. Instead, LinkedIn runs on a sort of honor system. You can say you work for a large company and give yourself an impressive job title....

Unsurprisingly, this really comes down to how you personally use your Android phone. Everyone has different usage habits. For some, 128GB is enough. Other people may run up against the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s 1TB. It depends on a few things. RELATED: Is It Worth Paying Extra for the Galaxy S22 Ultra? What Takes Up Storage Space? Let’s start by looking at what things actually take up the most storage space on your phone....

A screen reader is a sophisticated piece of software that reads on-screen content. However, they aren’t sophisticated enough to comprehend an object’s content. For that, you need to add alternative text (alt-text). Here’s how to add alt-text in Google Slides. Alt-text allows screen readers to read the description of an object aloud. In Google Slides, this helps make your presentation more readable for anyone who might have visual impairments....

Google lets you add notes, lists, and images from Google Keep directly into your Google Docs and Slides. Use existing notes or create a new one and add it on the fly without ever leaving your file. Here’s how. For this guide, we’ll be using Google Docs, but this method works identically on Slides as well. RELATED: The Beginner’s Guide to Google Docs Fire up your browser and head to Google Docs....

You will find several tools for taking screenshots on Windows 10, but very few to annotate them. Snip & Sketch is a feature-rich option built into Windows that lets you annotate the screenshots besides taking them. Snip & Sketch is an improved version of the Snipping Tool and makes it easy to annotate on screenshots. We’ll dive into detail on how to annotate screenshots using Windows 10’s Snip & Sketch tool....

Sometimes you get spam messages on your phone. Sometimes people are annoying. Sometimes you just need to block people. The good news is doing that on your iPhone is easy. There is a small quirk to blocking numbers on an iPhone: The number you want to block must be stored in your Contacts, as there’s no way to block a specific number otherwise. We recommend creating a contact called “Spam” (or similar) and adding all spammy numbers to that contact card so you don’t clutter up your contact list....

Insider Preview builds of Windows 10 have a built-in “time bomb.” Each comes with an expiration date, and Windows will eventually refuse to boot entirely after that date. Here’s how to check when that will happen. What Happens When a Windows 10 Build Expires? This only applies to unstable Insider Preview versions of Windows 10. Stable versions of Windows 10 will never “expire” and stop working, even when Microsoft stops updating them with security patches....

Whether your desktop has exceeded its icons limit, or you want to put files where you can quickly access them, it’s easy to create a folder on the desktop in Windows 11. We’ll show you two ways to do that. RELATED: How to Create an Invisible Folder on Your Windows 10 Desktop How to Make a Folder on the Desktop To create a new folder on your desktop with a graphical menu, use your PC’s right-click menu....

Windows 10 is the biggest and most aggressive Windows rollout to date. Before you take the plunge you need to image your hard drive so, should you wish to return to the familiarity of Windows 7 or Windows 8 you can do so with the click of a button. Note: This tutorial details how to create a bit-for-bit backup (a disk image) of your current Windows system disk so that you can later restore your computer using that image....

If all your photos are on your iPhone, you can simply share them with your Mac via AirDrop. If they’re not, though, it can take a long time to download your older photos to your iPhone, and then share them. It’s much quicker to download them from the cloud to your computer. To do this, open iCloud.com on your Mac, log in with your Apple ID (the same ID you use on your iPhone), and then click the Next button....

If you want to change a contact’s saved details, or you’d like to get rid of a contact forever, Gmail makes it easy for you to update and delete your contacts. Here’s how to do that on desktop, Android, iPhone, and iPad. Know that no matter what device you delete a Gmail contact on, that contact will be gone from your Google account. This is because all your Google account-linked contacts are synced universally, and you can’t have a contact on one device while having it removed from another....

Apple may be backing away from 3D Touch somewhat—it isn’t available on the iPhone XR at all—but we’re still big fans of the options it offers. If you’re not, you can disable 3D Touch altogether. 3D Touch arrived with the iPhone 6s, allowing people to push more firmly on some elements of the iOS interface to carry out actions or reveal additional options. It offers a right-click of sorts, giving iOS some extra depth....