Google Duo Video Conferencing As opposed to Apple FaceTime, a service that only lives on Apple products, Google Duo can be used on almost any device. Its natural habitat may be Android, but Google Duo works just as well on iOS or on the web. Google Duo is very easy to install and use. Furthermore, it’s a great tool for doing video conferences with your friends and family at times when distance or other circumstances make seeing each other in-person impossible....

All of these devices make use of NFC technology, and this same tech is built right into your iPhone. You can use it for more than just paying for your lunch or getting on a bus. NFC tech opens up a whole world of possibilities. Here’s how to use NFC on your iPhone. What is NFC? NFC stands for Near Field Communication. As the name suggests, this is a technology that allows your phone to communicate with other NFC-enabled devices or tags when they are in close proximity....

Create and Use Outlook.com Aliases Log in to your Outlook.com account, click the Options (gear icon), and then select More Email Settings. Then click Create a Outlook Alias. Type in the email address you want to use. You don’t need to use outlook.com either. You can choose @live or @hotmail too. After creating your alias, you’re brought back to your inbox with the following message. Decide if you want your alias email to go to a new folder or select one that’s already enabled in your inbox....

What is Setapp? First introduced in 2017, Setapp offers over 200 apps (and counting) on Mac for one monthly price. Apps are available in 11 categories, including Creativity, Writing & Blogging, and Task Management. As a subscriber, you can download the apps you want using the Setapp app for macOS. These are full-featured apps available for purchase separately, either through the Mac App Store or a developer site. Setapp iPhone Apps Active Setapp subscribers can add the iOS service through the Setapp app on Mac or its website....

Multiple Format Playback with VLC The killer feature of VLC is the ability to play files that iOS or the Mac doesn’t natively support media with file types like AVI files. Unfortunately, the AVI files wouldn’t always play the audio for me. That’s a known bug that should be fixed in a later update to the app. Other files like MKV and MP4 worked just fine. Play Files Off On Your Local Network The files don’t have to be in public folders, VLC lets you save login credentials....

A free iCloud account comes with 5GB of free storage. That’s not enough for most people since that’s all you get, regardless of how many Apple devices you own. Apple currently offers three subscription plans to increase your available iCloud storage space. How much do you need? It’s not necessarily a simple question to answer, as you’ll see in the words below. What is iCloud Storage? Before iCloud, Apple offered another remote backup service to users....

We mentioned last week that it was coming. As of 9:00pm PDT today, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) is available for download. IE9 will soon be hitting the the Windows Update download queue, or you can download it immediately from the link in this post. Microsoft hasn’t changed much, but they did make a few last minute tweaks since the release candidate. You might notice improved performance with low-end GPU’s, and improved website pinning across multiple domains....

According to Oracle’s Security Alert for CVE-2012-4681 all systems running JRE 7 Update 6 and earlier are at risk. Those still running JRE 6 must also update to version 35 as all earlier versions are now listed as vulnerable. However, the exploit does not affect servers or standalone desktop apps, only web browsers. To prevent intrusion from happening now, and in the future, there’s two steps to take. The first is to disable Java plugins for all of your web browsers....

After installing the extension, you’ll see a new link on the top right side of your Gmail window. Click Get Started and allow Kloudless the permissions you’re account. In the next step, you’ll be setting your cloud service accounts – the service supports Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive. I’ll go with the latter. You will, of course, be asked for permission for these services, too. Now, go ahead and create some rules from the Add-ons tab – you can have up to ten of them....

If you’re an Android user, rather than creating a new user account (which is time-consuming), creating a guest account is the quick and easy way to hand off your phone without that person seeing your stuff. Create a Guest Account on Android Summing Up Here’s a look at the HTC One M8 running Android 6.0 Marshmallow to give you an idea of how things can vary. I needed to edit the Quick Settings menu and add the user account icon because it wasn’t there by default....

In fact, it has the most votes in our Ask The Readers: What’s the Worst Software You Can Think Of. There’s plenty of alternatives to iTunes out there – foobar2000 is my personal favorite — but if you’ve spent years invested in it, and don’t want to hassle of switching, you can make it run faster. Delete Smart Playlists One of the easiest ways to speed up the launch of iTunes is to delete the default Smart Playlists....

Make Edge Open to Multiple Webpages To get started, launch Edge and click the Settings and more button (three dots) in the upper-right corner of the browser and choose Settings from the menu. Next, on the Settings page click On startup from the left column. Then from the right section under “On startup” select Open a specific page or pages. Then you have a couple of options. You can manually add pages or use all open tabs....

So with that said, you have 3 options. How to Apply a Global Setting for all USB device safely removed from your PC You can follow the manual instructions below, or just download this global registry fix. All of the settings we need to adjust can be found in the Windows registry. To get started open up regedit from the Start menu. Browse to the following registry key: Within the usbhub key, you need to enter another key called hubg....

Or, you might want to keep the power running in an instance where you’re just packing it up to move from one room to another, for example. Whatever the case, here’s how to make sure the Chromebook stays powered on when you close the lid. Keep the Power Running When You Close the Chromebook Lid To get started, click the clock area on the taskbar and then click the Settings icon from the menu....

After doing so, all of your Google apps will transform to a theme that reflects the path you choose. Google also notes that more is coming and it has also hidden a few easter eggs as well. To start your journey, head to google.com/starwars and then choose the light or the dark path. After that, you’ll find some interesting themes in Gmail, X-wing fighters on Google Maps, and a lot more....

Here’s the quote from her presentation: Since the departure of former Windows and Windows Live President, Steven Sinofsky, Julie Larson-Green was promoted to lead Windows Software and Hardware Engineering and together with Tami Reller, they report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. What’s interesting is the 40 Million total its double the monthly level of Windows 7 over the past three years, according to an article by Paul Thurrott. Also, according to a post today on Microsoft’s Blogging Windows, Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 in regard to user upgrades....

Currently there isn’t a whole lot of new features available in Edge other than what we showed you in our Project Spartan visual tour. But that is about to change according to the developers at this week’s Microsoft Edge Web Summit. Upcoming Microsoft Edge Features Some of the new upcoming features announced during the presentation are support for browser extensions like Pinterest, Skype, and Reddit. More Cortana scenarios where the address bar auto-suggest information from its “ask Cortana” such as weather, sports, and more....

Yesterday was another patch Tuesday, and this time Microsoft rolled out some updates that fix some severe security flaws. A total of 28 fixes were rolled out, included among them is the zero-day exploit for Internet Explorer 6-11 known as CVE-2013-3893. This series of patches marks the 10th anniversary for Microsoft’s patch Tuesday schedule. Of course, the majority of the vulnerabilities patched today could be avoided by using basic computer security common sense....

As is the case with most cumulative updates, there are no new features to report. But there is a healthy list of fixes that will improve your overall system performance and security. KB4505903 for Windows 10 1903 May 2019 Update After installing the update your build number will jump to 18362.267. Here is the list of what’s included: Addresses an issue that fails to record a local user’s last sign in time even when the user has accessed the server’s network share....

KB4480116 for Windows 10 1809 Since this is a cumulative update there are no new features, but this update will bump your build to 17763.253. Here is the list of improvements and fixes included in today’s cumulative update for Windows 10 1809 aka October 2018 Update: Addresses a security vulnerability in session isolation that affects PowerShell remote endpoints. By default, PowerShell remoting only works with administrator accounts, but can be configured to work with non-administrator accounts....