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Smarthome gadgets are convenient, but what happens when the power goes out? Can you unlock an electric smart lock? Will all your smart lights come on at 3 a.m. when the power returns? And what about your garage door. Power Outages Aren’t Much Worse For Smart Homes Power outages happen, and they’re annoying to everyone. Every home depends on electricity to power climate control, lighting, internet, appliances, and so many other modern conveniences....

In short, Alexa Guard can listen for specific sounds—like glass breaking, the smoke alarm going off, or the high-pitched squeals of a security system alarm. When it detects those sounds, it can send you a notification on your phone letting you know that something is up. How It Works RELATED: Is 24/7 Professional Home Security Monitoring Worth It? If Alexa does hear something suspiciously close to those sounds, it will send you a notification to your phone....

What Is Sidewalk? You may already have heard of devices like smart home sensors that operate using Z-Wave or Zigbee technology. These wireless protocols also operate in the 900MHz range, as do old cordless phones, the walkie-talkie technology in some cellular phones, and amateur radio broadcasts. The advantage of using this low-frequency band of the radio spectrum is that the signals are extremely robust and can move around or penetrate obstacles with ease....

Every time you turn on your computer, you have to choose a user account and sign in. That’s true on Windows, macOS, Linux, and even Chrome OS. Here’s why this is necessary for PCs but not iPhones, iPads, and Android. They’re Designed for Multiple Users Modern operating systems were designed for multiple users. Even if you only ever sign in to your Windows laptop with a single user account, Windows is built for more than that....

AirPods are one of Apple’s most beloved new products. But, if you love them so much that you use them every day, expect the irreplaceable batteries to only last a few years at most. RELATED: The Best Truly Wireless Earbuds (That Aren’t AirPods) AirPods have been on the market for a little over two years now. Throughout the last few months, we’ve been seeing more and more complaints of battery life issues with AirPods—mostly from users who’ve been using theirs for hours on end every day....

Most remote desktop solutions only take a few minutes to set up. Plus, as long as the remote computer remains online, the connection should work indefinitely. Setting Up Remote Access Remote access requires that you install an “agent” on the machine you want to control. You have to do this bit in person, so you’ll have to set this up before you leave the office or wherever the machine to which you want to remotely connect is located....

What’s in Apple One? Apple One includes services like iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and (if you’re in the Premier tier), Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+. The Individual and Family plans are $14.95 and $19.95 per month, respectively, while the Premier Plan will set you back $29.95. In terms of value, the Individual Plan saves you $6.01 per month, while the Family Plan will save you $7.97. The Premier Plan is the best deal of the bunch....

I’m assuming that you’ve already installed Samba Server at this point. There are two steps to creating a user. First we’ll run the smbpasswd utility to create a samba password for the user. Next, we’ll add that username to the smbusers file. Add in the following line, substituting the username with the one you want to give access to. The format is = “”. You can use a different samba user name to map to an ubuntu account, but that’s not really necessary right now....

Apple passes Spotify subscribers in the US, Google’s Pixel 3a and 3a XL leak (again), Microsoft makes it easier to remove USB drives, and a whole lot more. Here are the biggest stories from the weekend to start your Monday. Netflix Kills AirPlay Support Because of “Technical Limitations” Netflix has supported casting content with Apple AirPlay since 2013, but over the weekend it “suddenly” pulled the plug on the feature....

Emoji have opened new forms of communication—using little faces makes it easier to express sarcasm, sadness, and nearly any other emotion. Having an emoji that looks like you is even better. That’s why people love Apple’s Animoji and Memoji, which are available exclusively on the iPhone X. Samsung also has a similar feature named AR Emoji that uses a selfie to create an uncanny (and sometimes eerie) animated emoji based on you....

What Are Hardware Security Keys? Physical security keys like Google’s Titan Security Key and Yubico’s YubiKeys use the WebAuthn standard, the successor to U2F, to help protect your accounts. They function as another type of two-factor authentication: Rather than a code you type in, it’s a physical security key you insert into a USB port—or it can communicate wirelessly via NFC (near-field communication) or Bluetooth. You can use your key as a hardware security token to sign into accounts like your Google, Facebook, Dropbox, and GitHub accounts....

Most of the time unzipping a zip file in Windows is straightforward, but once in a while a zip file comes along and is nothing but trouble. With that in mind, today’s SuperUser Q&A post comes to the rescue to help a reader get a stubborn zip file opened. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites....

Presets are one of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s most powerful features; with them, you can use the same settings over and over again. The most common presets are Develop presets that consistently apply the same edits to any image. RELATED: What Is Adobe Lightroom, and Do I Need It? As well as Develop presets, Lightroom has presets for most of its features. For example, there are Metadata presets, Import presets, Export presets, Keyword sets, Slideshow presets, Watermarks, and more....

Have you ever written a Microsoft Word document and found that your last page contains just a few sentences and a bunch of white space? Instead of editing your work down, you can try a nifty hidden feature in Word that might solve the problem. The “Shrink One Page” command works by automatically sizing down your text and adjusting margins to shrink your document just enough. If you’re working on a document (like a school essay) where you must use a required font or margin size, this command probably won’t work well for you....

Google makes its services available in many different languages in addition to English. If you’d like to use Gmail, Drive, and other services in your chosen language, simply set the new language as the default in your account. We’ll show you how to do that on your desktop and your mobile. Later, if you want, you can switch back to English for all your Google services. Set Google Services to a Different Language on Desktop If you’re on a Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chromebook computer, use a website in your browser to change your language....

Which LED Strip Lights Work with Alexa? There are two types of LED strip lights that work with Alexa. The first type is smart LED strip lights that support Alexa. The lights will either say “Compatible with Alexa,” “Supports Alexa,” “Works with Alexa,” or something similar. You can usually find these labels on the product packing or in the product description. The second type is regular LED strip lights that don’t support Alexa....

The Microsoft News app allows you to view the latest news and headlines in one place. You can customize it to show news that interests you, local and worldwide, as well as hide news sources you dislike. It’s usually included with a Windows 10 installation but, if it isn’t, you can download and install the app from the Microsoft Store. Add or Remove News by Interest in Microsoft News Whether you love sports, politics, or entertainment stories, the News app lets you save your particular interests to help shape your news feed....

Double-clicking is the standard method of opening a desktop icon in Windows. It’s meant to prevent “accidental opens.” However, some people might want to access files and apps with a single click instead. If you’re among them, here’s how you can change this setting. Enabling the Single-Click Feature in Windows 10 To change the default to open files and folders from a double- to a single-click, head to the Start Menu....

Microsoft has been rolling out a dark mode to its Office apps for over a year. This change has been available in Outlook for desktop and the web for several months, and now it’s live on Android, iPhone, and iPad. Here’s how to enable the theme. The instructions for turning on Outlook’s dark mode is identical for all mobile devices. If you don’t see the option for the theme, check for an app update....

Microsoft OneDrive now offers to “protect” the contents of your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders. You can use your standard file storage folders, and OneDrive will synchronize them as if they were saved in the regular OneDrive folder. This feature isn’t enabled by default, but you can activate it in a few clicks. It’s part of the OneDrive software included with Windows 10, but it’s also available in OneDrive for Windows 7....