Think you have the perfect combination of geek knowledge and writing skills? We’re always looking for a few experienced writers to join our team. What We’re Looking For We are looking for experienced freelance writers to cover how-to guides, product roundups and comparisons, and explainers across a myriad of topics, including, but not limited to, things like Windows, Microsoft Office, macOS, iPhone, Android, Google, Smart Home, Cloud Services, Small Business / IT, Gadgets, and many other topics....

YouTube Music keeps track of your listening habits and uses the information to make personalized recommendations and playlists. That’s cool, but you might not want everything to contribute to that. The good news is you can pause the history. Maybe there’s an album that doesn’t fit with your other music and you don’t want it throwing off the algorithm. Or maybe you want to listen to some Christmas music for a couple of weeks without seeing Burl Ives in your recommendations until February....

You can usually see an abnormal amount of views in the Top Content report, but sometimes it’s not so clear which pages are being linked to. There is an easy way to see this, it’s just not immediately obvious to everybody. In this example we’ll look at StumbleUpon traffic by clicking on it in the sources list. Now select “Landing Page” from the Segment drop-down menu. And there we are… a nice tidy list of all the pages StumbleUpon sent visitors to....

If text is a big part of the data in your spreadsheet, you may need to adjust it to fit properly. The TRUNC function in Microsoft Excel works only with numbers. So if you want to truncate text, here’s how. There are many useful functions for working with text in Excel. Three of those functions help you truncate text in a cell. These are RIGHT, LEFT, and MID, and each has a variation for using bytes instead of characters....

If you’ve forgotten a credit card number while using Safari on your Mac, it’s easy to view credit card information saved by Safari’s AutoFill feature. You can also add, edit, or remove the stored cards. Here’s how. First, open Safari. In the menu bar, click “Safari” and select “Preferences.” Or you can press Command+, (comma) on your keyboard. In Safari Preferences, select the “AutoFill” tab, then click the “Edit” button beside “Credit Cards....

I’ve found a slightly documented tweak that will allow you to tell Windows to use more cache for the NTFS “pool”, which should increase performance if your system opens and closes a lot of files all the time like mine does. According to the Microsoft documentation: I’ll be testing this change out myself, and I really hope to get feedback from our excellent readers on this one. Please note that I’ve not run any benchmarks yet, so I can’t confirm yet that this yields any major benefit in real-world performance....

Fixing this is a really simple process… all we need is to know where to find the nice looking icons. Changing Folder Icon to Match The beauty of this tip is that you don’t need to download anything at all. Just right-click on the folder, choose Properties: Choose the Customize tab, and then click on the Change Icon button: Now here’s the trick… instead of the default shell32.dll file, we’ll change that to use the icons in imageres....

Note that this will make your system less secure before proceeding. Windows 7 Makes it Easy If you are running Windows 7, you can simply head into the UAC settings in Control Panel (or type UAC into the search box), and drag the slider down until you see “Do not dim the desktop”. That’s all there is to it! Windows Vista Business/Ultimate Users To get to the configuration screen for this, type in security to the start menu search box....

One of the more overlooked features in Outlook is the ability to use it as a journal. You can customize how the journal records information on contacts and it also has the ability to put the actions in a timeline view. Here is an easy to follow guide to begin using the journal option by recording a manual entry for a meeting and recording the time. First, go to File \ New \ Journal Entry...

Microsoft and Paramount+ are bringing the long-awaited live-action Halo series out, and the show finally has a release date. We won’t have to wait long, as the show is slated to air on Paramount+ starting March 24, 2022. The trailer came out over the weekend, and it has about two minutes of Halo action along with the announcement of the release date. There appears to be a lot of interest, as the trailer has almost two million views on YouTube and more than five million views on Twitter as of this writing,...

Setting NewTabURL Up Once you have finished installing the extension, the best place to start is with the options for NewTabURL. There is only one window, but it gives you very nice options to work with! As you can see, you can choose the specific page or URL to be loaded when a new tab is opened. One of the very nice features of this extension is the ability to load an URL that is in the Windows Clipboard as soon as you open a new tab (very convenient!...

The crypto-miner actually rolled out in July 2021 to some users, but the company has started a wider rollout recently. Some users are upset because the mining software is installed automatically as part of Norton 360, and the software pushes mining on users through a prompt that says, “Turn your PC’s idle time into cash,” as shown in the image above. Thankfully, you have to turn the feature on and meet Norton’s strict system requirements (an NVIDIA graphics card with a minimum of 6GB memory will be the main sticking point for most)....

Bungie, which was recently purchased by Sony, posted a Help page regarding playing its beloved Destiny 2 on Valve’s new portable PC: Bungie definitely isn’t beating around the bush here. The language clearly says that if you disregard the lack of support and figure out a way to get the game running on Steam Deck, you’ll no longer be able to play Destiny 2. Considering some players have thousands of hours invested into their Destiny 2 accounts, it definitely doesn’t seem worth the risk....

Did you realize you can select text vertically? All you have to do is hold down the Alt key, and you can make a vertical selection. For example, I want to delete the first two words from each item in this list, so I hold down the Alt key and make a selection around the area: Now I can cut, copy, or just delete the selection. You can make a vertical selection anywhere in the document, not just with lists....

This change is nothing new, the setting has existed since Windows 9x and likely most of you know how to activate it, but in case you don’t, here’s the quick and easy setting change. With this change, just hover over an icon and you’ll see the underline: And a single click will open up the folder. Changing the Setting Open up any folder, click on Organize and then Folder and Search options....

Valve originally promised a docking station would be available for the Steam Deck at the console’s release, but it has been delayed. Now Valve has confirmed it has been delayed, again. Valve said in an announcement on June 1, “Due to parts shortages and COVID closures at our manufacturing facilities, the official Steam Deck Docking Station is delayed. We’re working on improving the situation and will share more info when we have it....

Annoying… Right-click on the desktop and choose Properties, and then the Desktop tab, and then the Customize Desktop icon. Now just uncheck the box for “Run Annoying Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days” Just one example of a balloon I don’t want in my perfectly windy sky.

Windows 11 isn’t perfect out of the box — no software is. Tweaking it to make it your own can be the difference between an acceptable user experience and a great one. Here are a few of our favorite registry hacks for Windows 11 that you should try. Restore the Original Right-Click Context Menu Windows 11 changed the right-click menu pretty significantly. It might even be the most substantial redesign between versions of Windows since the feature was first introduced....

Using Random xkcd Wallpaper Installing the application is as simple as downloading, extracting, and launching. The Random xkcd button will set your wallpaper to a random comic each time you press it… rather fun. If your wallpaper shows up all stretched out, you should right-click on the desktop and choose Personalize, then go to Desktop Background. From there you will want to choose the “Center” option shown below, to center the wallpaper instead of stretching it out....

“Venmo introduced a new way for customers to gift money to friends and family for any occasion big or small through its new gift-wrapping feature. Beginning to roll out today, Venmo’s latest feature gives customers access to eight unique and vibrant animated gift-wrap designs that can be added to a payment note,” said PayPal (Venmo’s owners) in a release. Giving money is one of the most useful but least personal gifts you can send....