Your Data Is Valuable Most of the services you enjoy but don’t directly pay for on the internet make money by collecting and selling data. That data includes everything you do on the internet, tracked by third-party cookies across multiple sites. Other types of data such as location data can also be harvested, and it doesn’t stop there. Finely-grained information about how you interact with digital systems can all be recorded and analyzed....

To show hidden files, open Control Panel and double-click on Folder Options. Click on the View tab, and then click the radio button for “Show hidden files and folders” Now when you go back into explorer you will see additional folders you were not able to see previously. Note: For those of you who want to tweak and hack on XP, looking closer at this list you will see a checkmark next to “Hide protected operating system files”....

Using Karen’s Replicator This back up application is part of Karen’s Power Tools suite (free for personal use) that contains several other handy utilities. Installing Karen’s Replicator is quick and easy following the installation wizard. When you first run the application you will need to add a backup job by clicking on Edit Settings. The Edit Settings screen comes up where you will want to click on the New Job button....

Simply launch the EncryptOnClick application and decide if you would like to encrypt a File or an entire folder. For this demonstration I am going to encrypt my “secret documents” folder. Next Windows Explorer will launch to browse to the desired folder. Click OK. Now we are prompted for a password. Make sure and create a strong password that you will remember. Click OK. That is all there is to it!...

Note: If you have 500 million messages in your Gmail inbox folder you should think strongly about not enabling this, because it will take simply forever to download them all. From the Tools menu choose Send/Receive, Send/Receive Settings, and then Define Send/Receive Groups. Or you could just hit the Ctrl+Alt+S shortcut key instead of navigating the ridiculous menus. This will bring up the Send/Receive Groups dialog, which has some interesting options that aren’t relevant here....

Microsoft held its yearly “Inspire” event today, where the company reveals new products and services for large organizations. One of today’s announcements was ‘Excel Live,’ a new collaboration tool. Excel Live is the latest collaborative feature for Microsoft Teams, adding onto PowerPoint Live and other tools already present in Teams. People in a Teams call can share an Excel spreadsheet with participants, which can then be viewed and edited by everyone in the call....

Apple AirPods Pro For $174.99 ($74.01 Off) Ranked as one of our favorite wireless earbuds of 2022, the Apple AirPods Pro offer excellent all-around performance that can be yours today for $174.99 ($74.01 off). These buds feature active noise cancellation, spatial audio, sweat + water resistance, and you can get more than 24 hours of battery life when paired with the included MagSafe charging case. Google Wi-Fi Mesh System For $169....

The utility we’ll use is called Visual Tooltip, which is a hybrid dock / thumbnail applicaton. With a few tweaks to the settings, we can make it work just like Vista thumbnails. Here’s what it looks like on my desktop… pretty sweet! To make your thumbnails look the same as mine, just follow these couple of steps. Download and start the application, and open up the options from the tray icon....

To get to the bottom of how much download speed you actually need from your ISP, let’s look at what common internet activities require, how to calculate what your household needs, and the times when having the fastest speed available actually provides some benefit. How Much Bandwith Common Activities Require One thing we’ve noticed when talking to various friends, family members, and neighbors, is how frequently mismatched their internet plan is with the internet activities they’re actually engaging in....

Windows 8 and 10 let you to create a recovery drive (USB) or system repair disc (CD or DVD) that you can use to troubleshoot and restore your computer. Each type of recovery media gives you access to Windows’ advanced startup options, but there are differences between the two options. RELATED: How to Use the Advanced Startup Options to Fix Your Windows 8 or 10 PC The system repair disc has been around since the Windows 7 days....

Select the text you plan to indent. In the top menu, click Format > Align & Indent > Indentation Options. Under Special Indent, change the drop-down box to “Hanging. ” Adjust the indentation length if needed, then click “Apply. ” Google Docs makes it easy to create a hanging indent in your documents. You can use either a menu bar option or the document ruler to make a hanging indent. We’ll show you how....

When smartphones were first entering the mainstream, apps like Google Sky Map showed off their potential. Those apps weren’t just a gimmick to show off the accelerometer, though. There are still great apps that let you find constellations by simply pointing your phone at the sky. RELATED: How Does My Phone Know Which Way I’m Holding It? Stellarium Our favorite app for sky gazing is Stellarium, which is also has a great web interface for desktop....

If you need to tweet an image or video of something with a content warning, it’s a good idea to mark the media as “sensitive.” Doing so will hide the image or video unless someone clicks a “Show” button. Here’s how to do it. First, visit the Twitter website or open the Twitter app. Begin composing a tweet and attach an image or a video. If you’re using the Twitter app, tap the paintbrush icon below the image thumbnail to begin editing....

Android 13 is the latest version of Google’s operating system and it’s scheduled for an official release in late 2022. Until then, you can try it out with the Android 13 Beta program. We’ll show you how easy it is. The Android 13 Beta is different from the Android 13 Developer Previews. As the name implies, Developer Previews are intended for developers, while beta releases have a little broader appeal....

Note: this isn’t a get rich quick pyramid scheme, it’s going to require actual work on your part… but wouldn’t it be great to make some money while legitimately helping people? How it Works CrossLoop is a remote desktop control solution that is extremely simple to use for the end user you are trying to help… all they have to do is give you the code on the Share tab and click the Connect button....

If you want to create a Google Form with some answers already filled in, you can do this and send a unique link to your respondents. Rather than creating forms that are only slightly different, just use the prefill option. When to Use Prefilled Google Forms Let’s look at a few examples of how prefilled Google Forms could be useful. Maybe you have a feedback form for a multi-day event....

Have you ever accidentally deleted a calendar event? Or maybe you deleted an event that you changed your mind about? You don’t have to ask the organizer to resend the invitation. You can easily restore deleted events in Google Calendar. RELATED: How to Accept a Previously Declined Event in Microsoft Outlook How to Restore Deleted Google Calendar Events As of this writing in December 2021, the ability to restore a deleted event is only available on the web....

YouSendIt.com is a popular website for sending and receiving large files of up to 100MB for free. They now have an easy to use add-on for Outlook 2003 and above. After installation restart Outlook and you will notice the YouSendIt button with a drop down menu for signing in, configuring settings, and getting support. To start using this plug-in you will need to log into your account or sign up for a new one....

Nintendo added the ability to organize games into “Groups” with update 14.0.0 for the Switch. Groups does almost the same job as “Folders,” which the Nintendo 3DS had. Here’s how to organize your Switch collection. How Groups Are Different from 3DS Folders While they do a similar job, Switch Groups work a little differently from folders on the Nintendo 3DS. With the 3DS system, folders live on your Home Screen....

It’s All Relative Your computer’s treatment of time is one of those things that you might expect to be pretty straightforward. At least, until you start to look into it. The Linux system clock counts the number of seconds since the Unix epoch. This was at 00:00:00 on Jan. 1, 1970, UTC. UTC stands for universal time coordinated but it is usually said as coordinated universal time or just universal time....