Peer-to-Peer Messaging Basics When you send a message to a friend over Facebook, WhatsApp, Discord, or most other messaging services, the message is relayed from you, the client, to a central server. The central server then routes the message to a second client: your friend. Very broadly, the client requests services, and the server fulfills them. This is called the client-server model. The client-server model is extremely common and is utilized by most of the online services you’re familiar with — everything from Netflix and Facebook to World of Warcraft....

30 years ago—on April 6, 1992—Microsoft released Windows 3.1, which brought the company to a new level of success, kept the PC platform competitive with Macs, and set the stage for Windows PC domination. Here’s what was special about it. The Mouse and Microsoft How important was a mouse for computing in 1992? Almost a decade prior, Apple had made computers dramatically easier to use with the Apple Lisa and Macintosh computers....

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted SpaceX authorization to deploy Starlink’s super-fast internet on “Earth Stations in Motion” — meaning cars, boats, trucks, and aircraft. Even though Starlink uses ground-based wireless dishes to communicate with satellites, which can (in theory) be placed anywhere, the company didn’t have permission for vehicles actively moving until now. The same authorization also granted Kepler Communications permission to operate its own satellite-powered internet on boats in United States territory, and any US-registered ships in international waters....

The Explore feature works differently in Google Sheets than in Google Docs. You can use it to get useful details about your data to help you analyze it. You can also use pieces that the tool provides in your spreadsheet. If you’re looking for a handy way to learn more about the data in your Google Sheet, here are various ways to use the Explore feature. 1. Ask Questions About Your Data When you first open the Explore tool in Google Sheets, you’ll see suggestions and have the option to ask your own questions right at the top of the sidebar....

Focus Modes Focus on the iPhone is essentially specialized Do Not Disturb modes for specific situations. Android has a feature called “Focus Mode,” but it’s very different. Android also only really has one “Do Not Disturb” mode. It’s handy to be able to create specialized “Do Not Disturb” modes for different situations. You can make one for work, fitness, reading, dates, and more. In each Focus mode that you create, you decide which people and apps can bother you....

Right click an open area on the Taskbar and go to Toolbars and click on New Toolbar. The New Toolbar dialog box opens up where you can browse to the directory or folder you want to crate a toolbar for. Once you have the specified directory click on Select Folder. That is all there is to it! Now you will have the toolbar on the Taskbar. Because I went to a main directory I can click on the double arrow above the toolbar to create a list of sub directories within that folder....

Here’s the registry hack to get this working. Make sure you back up your registry just in case. I’ll show you the step-by-step method, but you can skip down to the bottom for the alternate reg file. Step-By-Step Method: Type regedit.exe into the Start\Run dialog, and then navigate to the following registry key: Once you are at that key, right click and choose the New Key option: Name the key “CommandPrompt” without the quotes and then double-click on the default value....

Just type gconf-editor into the Alt+F2 run dialog to open the Gnome Configuration Editor. Now browse down to the following key: On the right hand side, you’ll see an entry called trash_icon_visible. Just check the box. You can also change the trash_icon_name if you’d like. And there’s the icon.

According to both Google and Mozilla, Firefox and Chrome are rapidly approaching version 100, which the browser makers say could break some websites. Sometimes, cranking it to 100 can do damage. Google Chrome is scheduled to reach version 100 on March 29, 2022, which is right around the corner. Firefox has a little more time, as it’ll reach version 100 on May 3, 2022. Mozilla and Google (via Bleeping Computer) both started testing whether version 100 would cause issues, and it does appear that some pretty major websites are having problems....

“The terminal server has exceeded the maximum number of allowed connections. The system can not log you on. The system has reached its licensed logon limit. Please try again later.” This problem happens because Windows only allows two remote terminal services connections when you are in administrative mode, and you’ve either got two people already on that server, or more likely, you’ve got a disconnected session that still thinks it is active....

AutoArchive is turned on by default in Outlook 2007 and will actually remove some of the oldest files (you determine the amount of time) completely. Open Outlook and click on Tools \ Options Now click on the Other tab and click the AutoArchive button. This opens up a whole menu of options and settings to pick from: for instance you can choose how often AutoArchive runs. In this example I picked 20 days....

Do you use Dropbox to keep your stuff in the cloud? If you use an M1 Mac, you’ve probably noticed that Dropbox isn’t working on it. However, that’s changing, as Dropbox is rolling out support for Apple’s new chips in beta. A user on the Dropbox forum first noticed the change. When you get the newest beta version of Dropbox, there’s an “arm64” indicator, which means it has full support for M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max chips....

In a press release, Apple talked about some of the big names creating the new untitled Godzilla show. “The untitled Monsterverse series will be produced by Legendary Television and executive produced by co-creators Chris Black (Star Trek: Enterprise, Outcast), who will also serve as showrunner, and Matt Fraction (Hawkeye), alongside Safehouse Pictures’ Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell, and Toho Co., Ltd. Hiro Matsuoka and Takemasa Arita will executive produce for Toho,” said Apple....

Google Docs now makes it easier to insert all your favorite emoji, like 💯 and 💩. For adding emoji to a document on Google Docs, you can now just insert an @ symbol, and then a description for the emoji. For example, if you want to add a smiling emoji, just write @smile. You can also write @: to access a list of emojis or tap the arrow symbol to see a full dropdown emoji selector....

Google released Chrome 99 recently, and while it’s not the most significant update the company has ever released, it does make some substantial speed improvements on Mac and Android, according to Google. “We’re excited to announce that in M99, Chrome on Mac has achieved the highest score to date of any browser — 300 — in Apple’s Speedometer browser responsiveness benchmark,” said Google in a blog post. Using Apple’s benchmarking test, Google claims that Chrome is 7% faster than current builds of Safari, which doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re trying to get things done, any speed improvement can make a huge difference....

Graphics card prices and availability have significantly improved in recent months — most GPUs aren’t going for above their original prices anymore, and we’ve even started to see some sales. NVIDIA confirmed on a recent earnings call that the company is dealing with “excess inventory” of RTX 3000-series graphics cards, as supply finally starts to exceed buyer demand. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said the company has “instituted programs to price position our current products to prepare for next-generation products....

If you want to move to a different slide or section in your presentation, you can easily add a link on your slide. But by using a Section or Slide Zoom in PowerPoint, you can make that move look professional. In Microsoft PowerPoint, a Section or Slide Zoom places an image on your slide instead of linked text. In addition, when you click to visit that section or slide, you’ll see a nice zoom effect....

The Laptop Battery Unplugged from a mains AC adapter, your laptop is completely dependent on its battery for everything. Powering the screen, using the hard drives, accessing Wi-Fi, and reading user input all come to a jarring halt if your battery isn’t up to the job. Manufacturers can’t agree on whether leaving a laptop plugged in all the time is a good thing or bad. If you don’t want to do that, then your laptop usually won’t be at 100% battery charge when you do go out with it....

If you’re trying to change the color of the taskbar in Windows 11, you might find that the option to “Show accent color on Start” is grayed out in the Settings app. We’ll show you how to fix it. Here’s the root of the problem: Windows 11 doesn’t allow you to apply an accent color to the taskbar unless you have your appearance set to “Dark.” Otherwise, if you visit Personalization > Colors in Settings, you’ll see “Show accent color on Start and taskbar” grayed out....

I know what you are thinking… why would you possibly want it back? If you are customizing Firefox for somebody else and you turned the warning off… you might want to re-enable it after you are done to help prevent them from making changes. Re-Enable about:config Warning Type in about:config into the address bar, and then filter by the following: Just double-click on the item to change the value back to true, and the warning message will show up again....