Apple Card users can now download monthly transactions in a spreadsheet

One of the big questions I got around the time the Apple Card launched was whether you’d be able to download a file of your transactions to either work with manually or import into a piece of expenses management software. The answer, at the time, was no.

Now Apple is announcing that Apple Card users will be able to export monthly transactions to a downloadable spreadsheet that they can use with their personal budgeting apps or sheets.

When I shot out a request for recommendations for a Mint replacement for my financing and budgeting a lot of the responses showed just how spreadsheet oriented many of the tools on the market are. Mint accepts imports, as do others like Clarity Money, YNAB and Lunch Money. As do, of course, personal solutions rolled in Google Sheets or other spreadsheet programs.

The one rec I got the most and which I’m trying out right now, Copilot, does not currently support importing spreadsheets but founder Andres Ugarte told me that it’s on their list to add. Ugarte told me that they’re happy to see the download feature appear because it lets users monitor their finances on their own terms. “Apple Card support has been a top request from our users, so we are very excited to provide a way for them to import their data into Copilot.”

Here’s how to export a spreadsheet of your monthly transactions:

• Open Wallet
• Tap ‘Apple Card’
• Tap ‘Card Balance’
• Tap on one of the monthly statements
• Tap on ‘Export Transactions’

If you don’t yet have a monthly statement you won’t see this feature until you do. The last step brings up a standard share sheet letting you email or send the file however you normally would. The current format is CSV but in the near future you’ll get an OFX option as well.

So if you’re using one of the tools (or spreadsheet setups) that would benefit from being able to download a monthly statement of your Apple Card transactions then you’re getting your wish from the Apple Card team today. If you use a tool that requires something more along the lines of API-level access like something using Plaid or another account-linking-centric tool then you’re going to have to wait longer.

No info from Apple on when that will arrive if at all but I know that the team is continuing to launch new features so my guess is that this is coming at some point.

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Nebia’s co-founder talks about finding product/market fit

Finding the right product/market fit is challenging for any company, but it’s just a little harder for hardware startups.

I recently visited the San Francisco offices of Nebia to chat with co-founder and CEO Philip Winter, whose eco-friendly hardware startup has received funding from Apple CEO Tim Cook, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Fitbit CEO James Park. After checking out the company’s latest shower head, we eased into a discussion about the opportunities and challenges facing hardware startups in Silicon Valley today.

TechCrunch: What’s so hard about hardware in 2020?

Philip Winter: The hardware landscape was, at one point, super-hot, at least in Silicon Valley. I would say like three or four years ago. A lot of companies came out with breakout products and a lot of them disappeared over the years since then. A lot of them are our peers — it’s a fairly small community.

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How designing brand-new enzymes could change the world | Adam Garske

How designing brand-new enzymes could change the world | Adam Garske

"If DNA is the blueprint of life, enzymes are the laborers that carry out its instructions,' says chemical biologist Adam Garske. In this fun talk and demo, he shows how scientists can now edit and design enzymes for specific functions -- to help treat diseases like diabetes, create energy-efficient laundry detergent and even capture greenhouse gases -- and performs his own enzyme experiment onstage.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

AppsFlyer raises $210M for ad attribution and more

AppsFlyer has raised a massive Series D of $210 million led by General Atlantic.

Founded in 2011, the company is best known for mobile ad attribution — allowing advertisers to see which campaigns are driving results. At the same time, AppsFlyer has expanded into other areas like fraud prevention.

And in the funding announcement, General Atlantic Manager Director Alex Crisses suggested that there’s a broader opportunity here.

“Attribution is becoming the core of the marketing tech stack, and AppsFlyer has established itself as a leader in this fast-growing category,” Crisses said. “AppsFlyer’s commitment to being independent, unbiased, and representing the marketer’s interests has garnered the trust of many of the world’s leading brands, and we see significant potential to capture additional opportunity in the market.”

Crisses and General Atlantic’s co-president and global head of technology Anton Levy are both joining AppsFlyer’s board of directors. Previous investors Qumra Capital, Goldman Sachs Growth, DTCP (Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners), Pitango Venture Capital and Magma Venture Partners also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $294 million.

AppsFlyer said it works with more than 12,000 customers including eBay, HBO, Tencent, NBC Universal, Minecraft, US Bank, Macy’s and Nike. It also says it saw more than $150 million in annual recurring revenue in 2019, up 5x from its Series C in 2017.

AppsFlyer Raises Another $20 Million To Build Out Its Mobile Ad Measurement Platform

Co-founder and CEO Oren Kaniel said that as attribution becomes more important, marketers need a partner they can trust. And with AppsFlyer driving $28 billion in ad spend last year, he argued, “There’s a lot of trust there.”

Kaniel added, “It doesn’t really matter how sophisticated your marketing stack is, or whether you have AI or machine learning — if the data feed is wrong … everything else will be wrong. I think companies realize how sensitive and critical this data platform is for them. I think that in the past couple of years, they’re investing more in selecting the right platform.”

In order to ensure that trust, he said that AppsFlyer has avoided any conflicts of interest in its business model — a position that extends to fundraising, where Kaniel made sure not to raise money from any of the big players in digital advertising.

And moving forward, he said, “We will never go into media business, never go into media services. We want to maintain our independence, we want to maintain our previous unbiased positions.”

Kaniel also argued that while he doesn’t see regulations like Europe GDPR and California’s CCPA hindering ad attribution directly, the regulatory environment has justified AppsFlyer’s investment in privacy and security.

“Even more than just being in compliance, [with AppsFlyer], marketers all of a sudden have full control of their data,” he said. “Let’s say on the web, probably your website is sending data and information to partners who don’t need to have access to this ifnormation. The reason is, there’s no logic, there’s a lot of pixels going everywhere, the publishers don’t have control. If you use our platform, you have full control, you can configure the exact data points that you’d like to share.”

Measured promises a smarter approach to ad attribution

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Gartner: 2020 device shipments to grow 0.9% to 2.16B thanks to 5G, before 2 further years of decline

The analysts at Gartner have published their annual global device forecast, and while 2020 looks like it may be partly sunny, get ready for more showers and poor weather ahead. The analysts predict that a bump from new 5G technology will lead to total shipments of 2.16 billion units — devices that include PCs, mobile handsets, watches, and all sizes of computing devices in between — working out to a rise of 0.9% compared to 2019.

That’s a modest reversal after what was a rough year for hardware makers who battled with multiple headwinds that included — for mobile handsets — a general slowdown in renewal cycles and high saturation of device ownership in key markets; and — in PCs — the wider trend of people simply buying fewer of these bigger machines as their smartphones get smarter (and bigger).

As a point of comparison, last year Gartner revised its 2019 numbers at least three times, starting from “flat shipments” and ending at nearly four percent decline. In the end, 2019 saw shipments of 2.15 billion units — the lowest number since 2010. All of it is a bigger story of decline. In 2005, there were between 2.4 billion and 2.5 billion devices shipped globally.

“2020 will witness a slight market recovery,” writes Ranjit Atwal, research senior director at Gartner. “Increased availability of 5G handsets will boost mobile phone replacements, which will lead global device shipments to return to growth in 2020.”

(Shipments, we should note, do not directly equal sales, but they are used as a marker of how many devices are ordered in the channel for future sales. Shipments precede sales figures: overestimating results in oversupply and overall slowdown.)

The idea that 5G will drive more device sales, however, is still up for debate. Some have argued that while carriers are going hell for leather in their promotion of 5G, the idea of special 5G apps and services — versus using it to connect machines in an IoT play — that will spur adoption of those devices is not as apparent, and that’s leading to it being more of an abstract concept, and not one that is leading the charge when it comes to apps and services, especially for the mass consumer market and for (human) business users.

In 6 years of hearing pitches in Silicon Valley, I heard '5G' maybe once. That's not from ignorance – the utility network layer is not very important to innovation at the top of the stack.

— Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) January 20, 2020

Still, it may be that hardware might march on ahead regardless. Gartner predicts that 5G devices will account for 12% of all mobile phone shipments in 2020 as handset makers make their devices “5G ready,” with the proportion increasing to 43% by 2022. “From 2020, Gartner expects an increase in 5G phone adoption as prices decrease, 5G service coverage increases and users have better experiences with 5G phones,” writes Atwal. “The market will experience a further increase in 2023, when 5G handsets will account for over 50% of the mobile phones shipped.” That may in part be simply because handset makers are making their devices “5G ready”

Drilling down into the numbers, Gartner believes that worldwide, phones will see a bump of 1.7% this year, up to 1.78 billion before declining again in 2021 to 1.77 billion and then further in 2022 to 1.76 billion. Asia and in particular China and emerging markets will lead the charge.

Another analyst firm, Counterpoint, has been tracking marketshare for individual handset makers and notes that Samsung remains the world’s biggest handset maker going into Q4 2019 (final numbers on that quarter should be out in the coming weeks), with 21% of all shipments and slight increases over the year, but with the BBK group (which owns OPPO, Vivo, Realme, and OnePlus) likely to pass it, Huawei and Apple to become the world’s largest, as it’s growing much faster. Numbers overall were dragged down by declines for Apple, the world’s number-three handset maker, which saw a slump last year in its handset sales.

Although the market was generally lower across all devices, PC shipments actually saw some growth in 2019. That is set to turn down again this year, to 251 million units, and declining further to 247 million in 2021 and 242 million in 2022.

Part of that is due to slower migration trends — Windows 10 adoption was the primary driver for people switching up and buying new devices last year, but now that’s more or less finished. That will see slower purchasing among enterprise end users, although later adopters in the SME segment will finally make the change when support for Windows it 7 finally ends this month (it’s been on the cards for years at this point). In any case, the upgrade cycle is changing because of how Windows is evolving.

“The PC market’s future is unpredictable because there will not be a Windows 11. Instead, Windows 10 will be upgraded systematically through regular updates,” writes Atwal “As a result, peaks in PC hardware upgrade cycles driven by an entire Windows OS upgrade will end.”

Two trends that might impact shipments — or at least highlight other currents in the hardware market — should also be noted. The first is the role that Chromebooks might play in the PC market. These were one of the faster-growing categories last year, and this year we will see even more models rolled out, with what hardware makers hope will be even more of a boost in functionality to drive adoption. (Google and Intel’s collaboration is one example of how that will work: the two are working on a set of standards that will fit with chips made by Intel to produce what the companies believe are more efficient and compelling notebooks, with tablet-like touchscreens, better battery life, smaller and lighter form factors, and more.)

The second is whether or not smartwatches will make a significant dent into the overall device market. Q3 of last year saw growth of 42% to 14 million shipments globally. And while there have been a number of smartwatch hopefuls, but one of the biggest successes has been the Apple Watch, whose growth outstripped that of the wider watch market, at 51%. Indeed, looking at the results of the last several quarters, Apple’s product category that includes Watch sales (wearables, home and accessories) even appears to be on track to outstrip another hardware category, Macs. Whether that will continue, and potentially see others joining in, will be an interesting area to “watch.”

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Learn to Code This Year With 120 Hours of Training for $39

Learning to code isn’t just for aspiring developers. In many industries, recruiters are now looking for people who can create websites and handle data. If you want to master these skills, the 2020 Premium Learn To Code Certification Bundle can help. This huge learning library includes 10 courses and 120 hours of content, covering the most popular languages and frameworks in use today. You can pick up the training now for only $39 at MakeUseOf Deals.

Learn to Code

As we enter a new decade, coding skills are becoming as important as English and math. This bundle provides a complete education in code, with courses that take you from complete beginner to certified expert.

Through video lessons, you learn how to create stunning websites with HTML5 and CSS3, along with JavaScript, jQuery, and Bootstrap. The courses on Python and R help you work with data, and you discover how to build apps with Google’s Flutter and Dart. You also get an introduction to machine learning, using Keras to build your own AI that can classify images.

Each course includes multiple projects, helping you to gain hands-on experience and build a portfolio. In addition, you can claim a certificate of completion to prove your skills.

120 Hours of Training for $39

Order now for just $39 to get lifetime access to all 10 courses, worth $2,300.

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5 Travel Planning Apps for Free City Guides and Recommended Itineraries

The internet is your best travel buddy today. The next time you travel to a new city, check out these apps and websites. You will find offbeat attractions, walking tours, and sightseeing recommendations that guidebooks might overlook.

These apps assume you have already picked your travel destination, so you are now researching what to do once you get there.

From renowned brands offering city guides to local experts giving their insights, there’s a healthy mix for every type of traveler. Plus, you don’t have to research in advance every time. Some of these tools will dynamically recommend items based on your current location.

1. Visit A City (Web, Android, iOS): Readymade Itineraries Up to One Week

A travel agent will whip up an itinerary of where you should go, what you should see, and so on. Visit A City already has that prepared, ranging from a day’s plan to seven days worth of sights and attractions in most tourist destinations.

Each city has multiple guides that cover major sights, tours, and activities. For example, if you pick Barcelona, you’ll get a 3-day guide for top attractions, or a 5-day guide for visiting Barcelona with kids, and so on. There’s a surprising amount of variety on the website, letting you choose exactly the type of trip you want.

Any itinerary you choose will open with a map and a day-by-day schedule. You can remove or add items, and buy tickets in advance. Other tabs recommend alternative things to do and attractions. The full itinerary can be printed for free, or you can download it for offline use on the Visit A City app.

The website and the app are easy to use and shockingly thorough. Even if you’re someone who loves planning your own trips, use one of Visit A City’s itineraries as a starting point to make your job easier.

Download: Visit A City for Android | iOS (Free)

2. WhatsHere (Android, iOS): Map of Nearby Tourist Attractions

WhatsHere is a map-based travel guide. Search for a place or let it zoom into your current location, and the app will recommend myriad tourist attractions. As simple as that seems, there are a few features that make it even better.

For starters, WhatsHere has a list of categories to narrow down the places of interest to you: historic, museum, tourist attraction, landmark, trail, UNESCO heritage spots, and so on. Choose one or all, and see them in list form. Each place has multiple tags and you can see how far it is from your current location.

Alternately, open the Map view, which is where WhatsHere really shines. Each pin has a different color and icon, depending on its category. Tap it to get a popup with a brief description about why it’s important, and to see how far it is from you. You can bookmark the place, view pictures from others, and even get a quick link to its Wikipedia entry.

Download: WhatsHere for Android | iOS (Free)

3. Spotted By Locals (Web, Android, iOS): Non-Touristy Guides From Locals

Spotted By Locals currently has guides for only 79 cities, spread across Europe, parts of Asia, and North America. But if a city you’re visiting is featured on the website, then you won’t get a better guide for offbeat tourism.

If you’ve hosted a tourist in your hometown, you know that there are must-see places that every travel agent will recommend, and a few local secrets that you’d like them to see. That’s what makes this special. Each city’s guides are written by locals who have lived there for some time.

You will find articles across a range of categories, or view them chronologically. The latter might be better since you get a local’s recent recommendation, rather than a place they visited a long time ago.

Spotted By Locals also has mobile apps. While the app is free, each city’s guide costs $3.99 to download. In return, you get offline maps and information, but you can see all of the same data on the website for free.

Download: Spotted By Locals for Android | iOS (Free)

4. Awayn (Android, iOS): Visually Rich Guides and Free Magazine

Awayn is a design-focused app with a good mix of features to find travel inspiration. Among the highlights is the free Awayn digital magazine, packaged as part of the app, which tackles one type of travel or region, and includes an interview too.

On the main page of the app, you can search for a city, browse by country, or look at “featured adventures” as recommended by Awayn’s community. These featured adventures are actually quite cool and a good place to discover something new. I also liked the idea of browsing by country instead of a city because you might come across an activity that alters your itinerary.

If you like to browse by location, head to Map to find your current GPS coordinates. Awayn will highlight points of interest and travel attractions in your vicinity. The app deserves credit here for recommending places that you wouldn’t find in most other travel guides.

Download: Awayn for Android | iOS (Free)

5. CityBook (Android, iOS): Booking.com’s Travel Guide

CityBook is the new kid on the block, a product of one of the best hotel booking websites Booking.com. Currently, it hosts city guides for only London, Amsterdam, and Paris, but the number of cities will increase with time.

Depending on the time of the day, CityBook will suggest activities. For example, if you check the app in the morning, you’ll find breakfast recommendations. Later in the day, it’ll give you evening activities, shows, or bars. It’s a nice mixture of historical and cultural places, food and drinks, and events.

The app is a combination of recommendations for places to visit as well as a ticketing office for places like museums. You can add places of interest to your “bucket list” and tick them off as you go about your travels.

Get a Truly Local Experience

One of the joys of traveling is to discover how people from a different culture or lifestyle go about their daily lives or celebrate major events. Most hotels and tour packages will offer some activities, but these are often tourist traps and don’t feel genuine.

Instead, as the internet breaks down barriers, use an app. Whether it’s enjoying a home-cooked meal with a local or partying with a native, check out these cool travel apps to get a truly local experience.

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Radiohead Archives Its Music and Art Online

Radiohead has launched the Radiohead Public Library. This is a free online repository covering all aspects of Radiohead’s output, including music, videos, artwork, and merchandise. And Radiohead has even thrown in some rarities to please the biggest fans.

For the uninitiated, Radiohead is a British rock band which specializes in alt rock and experimental music. The band has had a couple of big hits, such as Creep and Karma Police, but is predominantly focused on producing albums for its adoring fans.

Radiohead Refuses to Play by the Rules

Radiohead hasn’t always played by the rules when it comes to limiting access to its music. In 2007, Radiohead offered In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want basis, and the lead singer, Thom Yorke, has expressed concerns over streaming music services.

In December 2019, Radiohead published its entire back catalog on YouTube, meaning you can stream every album for free. And now the Radiohead Public Library is unearthing even more music, videos, and artwork that most bands would hide behind a paywall.

How to Access the Radiohead Public Library

According to the band, the Radiohead Public Library is “an online resource containing videos, music, artwork, websites, merchandise, and assorted ephemera.” Radiohead has made the change in order to make Radiohead.com “incredibly informative”.

https://t.co/Gk4BUXwjsg has always been infuriatingly uninformative and unpredictable. We have now, predictably, made it incredibly informative.

We present: the RADIOHEAD PUBLIC LIBRARY. pic.twitter.com/H7Ft6lNuuN

— Radiohead (@radiohead) January 20, 2020

When you visit the Radiohead Public Library, you’ll find a mishmash of different elements organized by era. So, alongside OK Computer (with the tracklisting and links to buy or stream it) are music videos, artwork, websites, album-specific merch, and more.

Listen to Full Radiohead Albums on YouTube

This is just the latest attempt by Radiohead to give something back to their fans. As previously mentioned, you can already listen to full Radiohead albums on its YouTube channel. Which is something other bands would never even contemplate doing.

Radiohead isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the Radiohead Public Library is an incredible resource. What’s even better is that you can fill in and download your own Radiohead Public Library card. You could then use one of these portable printers to print it out.

Read the full article: Radiohead Archives Its Music and Art Online

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How to Share Spotify Songs to Facebook Stories

Spotify lets you share songs to Facebook Stories. You can also share albums, playlists, and your profile, but if you share single tracks, they come with 15-second previews. Allowing people viewing your Facebook Story to hear a portion of the song.

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In May 2018, Spotify added the option to share songs to Instagram Stories. This adds a sticker to an Instagram Story, allowing viewers to click through to hear the song. Then, in September 2019, Spotify added the option to share songs to Facebook Stories.

How to Share Spotify Songs to Facebook Stories

As detailed on the Spotify for Artists Blog, Spotify now lets you share music directly to Facebook Stories. You can share songs, albums, playlists, or your profile, all of which will generate a link people can click on to end up on the Spotify app.

However, if you share a single song (rather than an album, playlist, or your profile), anyone who views your Facebook Story will be treated to a 15-second preview of that song. They can then click “Play on Spotify” to hear the rest of the track.

Add some music to your story ?
Audio sharing to Facebook Stories is now available. pic.twitter.com/HSBgmxYd8G

— Spotify (@Spotify) August 30, 2019

To share a Spotify song to a Facebook Story, tap “Share” when viewing a track on Spotify. Select Facebook, choose to customize your Story, and post it. Viewers of the Facebook Story will be able to preview the track instantly, or click through to hear the rest.

Spotify notes that “the previews are generated from our Web API,” and that the “Feature availability will differ based on territory”. Unfortunately, Spotify doesn’t list the countries supported, so you’ll have to try sharing songs to find out where it works.

Download: Spotify for Android | iOS

Read Our Beginner’s Guide to Spotify

This is beneficial to everyone involved. Ordinary users get to share their songs with friends. Artists get to share music with their fans. Spotify gets people interacting with its API. And Facebook gets another tool to improve engagement with Stories.

If any of your friends or fans clicks through to Spotify after seeing a song on a Facebook Story you should direct them to our beginner’s guide to Spotify. Meanwhile, all other streaming music fans should find our Spotify keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet useful.

Read the full article: How to Share Spotify Songs to Facebook Stories

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The 7 Best Weather Widgets for Windows

Keeping the tabs on the weather isn’t the most exciting activity in the world, but it’s usually a necessity. While a small number of people have the luxury of living in areas with a stable climate, many of us live in areas where a sunny day can be lost to a thunderstorm in just a few minutes.

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There are many ways to find out about the weather, and one of them is by using Windows gadgets. Unfortunately, Microsoft removed this feature after Windows 7, so we’ll have to work around this. Let’s take a look at some of the best Windows weather widgets for keeping tabs on mother nature.

How to Get Windows Gadgets

Before diving into the list of desktop weather Windows gadgets, you should know how to get these widgets to work in the first place. Windows 10 no longer has the convenient gadgets feature that Windows 7 came with, so you’ll have to install a third-party app to take your desktop back in time.

Make sure to read this article on how to get Windows 10 gadgets on your desktop before continuing.

For this article, I installed 8GadgetPack. By default, 8GadgetPack comes with some of the apps I’ve put on this list, including Chameleon Weather, MSN Weather, and My Weather.

Any other apps on the list come from Win7Gadgets, which is a site worth checking out if you’re looking for more gadgets to add to your desktop.

The following weather gadgets still work, despite being many years old.

1. MSN Weather Widget

The default view of the MSN app simply shows the name of your city, the temperature, and a graphic that indicates current weather conditions and time. If you click on the name of the city you will open up the MSN weather page in your browser, while clicking elsewhere on the widget will open a five-day extended forecast.

While there are no options to show information like humidity, wind speed, or radar, it still holds up as a useful weather tool that’s fun to check every day.

Download: MSN Weather Widget

2. Chameleon Weather

Out of all the apps on this list, Chameleon Weather is the most simple. It merely shows the highs and lows for your city and displays the current weather conditions.

After searching for and selecting your city in the settings, the app will do the rest of the work for you—it automatically pulls up the forecast for your area. Plus, it’s small enough to tuck away in the corner of your desktop without taking up too much space.

Download: Chameleon Weather

3. AccuWeather

Not only is AccuWeather one of the best websites for finding out the upcoming forecast, but it also comes in the form of a bite-sized Windows weather gadget.

Clicking on the blue icon in the top left of the AccuWeather gadget allows you to specify your location. The gadget will then show your city’s current temperature and weather conditions. Select the center of the gadget to open up a handy five-day forecast.

You can view an even more detailed forecast by clicking on your city’s name—the gadget will redirect you to AccuWeather’s website for more information. Similarly, clicking a “plus” button underneath one of the days on the weekly forecast will bring you to that specific day on AccuWeather’s website.

Download: AccuWeather Forecast

4. My Weather

If you want a detailed forecast on your desktop, this Windows 10 weather widget is the way to go. At first glance, My Weather looks like a simple gadget that displays a weather graphic and a temperature. However, once you enlarge it, you’ll see a three-day forecast, along with humidity, wind speed, and the “feels like” temperature.

In addition to all these useful features, this gadget also offers extensive customization options. You can change the color of the gadget’s background, change the look of the text, as well as incorporate the sunrise and sunset times.

Download: My Weather

5. WeatherEye

WeatherEye is another great desktop weather widget for Windows 10. As soon as you input your location and enlarge it, the gadget will show you the temperature, weather conditions, humidity, wind speed, pressure, and a two-day forecast.

Click on the Weather Maps link at the bottom of the gadget, and a radar on the Weather Network’s website will appear in your browser. Just keep in mind that the Weather Cameras and Traffic & Roads links no longer work properly.

Download: WeatherEye

6. Yrweather

The Yrweather Windows weather gadget for Windows 10 might not look the most attractive, but it still provides an accurate forecast. However, this gadget doesn’t offer forecasts for smaller towns and cities. When you browse through its selection of cities for your country, you’ll find only the major ones listed.

The gadget’s main screen displays the current precipitation amount, weather conditions, temperature, wind speed, as well as wind direction. To view the forecast for the next four days, click the blue arrow at the bottom left corner of the gadget.

Download: Yrweather

7. M’s Black Glass Weather

M’s Black Glass Weather widget has “Black Glass” in its name for a reason—the widget’s background is a transparent black color. That way, your weather widget doesn’t have to fully cover anything on your desktop.

Like most gadgets on this list, it displays the bare minimum on its default screen. You’ll only see the weather conditions and temperature before expanding the widget. When you click on the widget, it’ll show you the forecast for the rest of the week. It includes brief, written descriptions of the forecast as well.

Download: M’s Black Glass Weather

Keep Track of the Forecast With Desktop Weather Widgets

While you might think Windows widgets are a thing of the past, some of them are still alive and well on Windows 10. Not to mention that having weather widgets right on your desktop is super convenient—you can find out the forecast with just a quick glance!

If having a weather widget on your Windows computer isn’t enough, you should think about installing a weather app on your phone. These free weather apps will provide you with the forecast, and even give you climate-based advice.

Read the full article: The 7 Best Weather Widgets for Windows

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25 Outlook 2016 Command Line Switches You Have to Know

You can get more out of Microsoft Outlook by learning how to use command line switches.

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The command line interface can seem intimidating, especially if you aren’t particularly familiar with using it. However, it can offer major benefits if you’re willing to learn the basics.

Command line switches can be used in Outlook to perform all kinds of tasks. Whether you’re troubleshooting a problem or just trying to speed up your normal usage, these switches offer serious advantages.

Here are 25 command line switches for Outlook to get started with.

Introduction to Run Commands

The easiest way to input a command line switch is by using a Run command, which is essentially a single-line version of the full command line interface.

In Windows 10, you can open a new Run command by typing Run into the search bar, or by using the shortcut Windows key + R.

You should see this window — simply input your desired switch into the Open field and press Enter to execute it.

Now let’s take a look at how to perform some tasks using this tool!

Sending Emails

Command line switches can be used to speed up the process of sending emails. To compose a new message, enter the following into the Run dialog:

outlook.exe /c ipm.note

This will generate a blank Outlook email. It’s also possible to add the name of the email’s recipient by adding an extra /m switch onto the end of the command:

outlook.exe /c ipm.note /m dvader@empire.org

The result is a new Outlook email with the recipient filled in:

You can even add an attachment by using the /a switch and specifying its disk location.

outlook.exe /m artoo@rebellion.net /a "C:\My Documents\deathstarplans.pdf"

Which results in the following email draft:

You may have noticed that ipm.note was left off the switch from the previous command. Unless Outlook receives specific instructions to attach the file to a different type of item, the program will assume that the user is trying to draft an email.

To attach content to a different item, such as a task, all you need to do is add another switch to the command.

Creating Other Items

By modifying the last element in the command used to send an email, you can create a variety of other Outlook items:

• ipm.contact — Creates a new contact.
• ipm.stickynote — Creates a new note.
• ipm.task — Creates a new task.
• ipm.appointment — Creates a new appointment.
• ipm.activity — Creates a new journal entry.

Cleaning up Outlook

Anyone who’s worked as a system administrator will tell you that certain employees can have a tendency to … adjust their computer station.

Whether they’ve been fiddling with settings that should go untouched or repetitive reminders that clog up the system, cleaning up this mess can be frustrating.

Fortunately, we can use switches to clean up some parts of Outlook without even touching the program. The following command will remove all names and email addresses from the Autocomplete register:

outlook.exe /cleanautocompletecache

There are plenty of other things that we can clean in Outlook by switching out /cleanautocompletecache for another switch:

• /cleancategories — Deletes any custom category names and restores category names to their default labels.
• /cleanclientrules — Deletes client-based rules.
• /cleanserverrules — Deletes server-based rules.
• /cleanrules — Deletes both client-based and server-based rules.
• /cleanreminders — Clears and regenerates reminders.
• /cleanviews — Deletes any custom views and restores the defaults.

Opening and Finding Files

Switches can be used to open individual files in Outlook without having to navigate through an email inbox. The following command will open either a message file using the MSG format or a saved search that uses the OSS format—just swap out file-name.

outlook.exe /f file-name

We can also swap out /f for /hol to open a HOL file, and /ical to open an ICS file.

Sometimes you might not have the file name of the content that you’re looking for. In this situation, you can use the /finder switch:

outlook.exe /finder

This will produce the Advanced Find window, which is a powerful search tool to find just about anything hidden away in Outlook.

Opening Outlook

Initializing Outlook from a Run command might shave a few seconds off the process, but that’s not the only reason you might want to use it. By taking advantage of switches, you can open Outlook and perform other useful tasks at the same time.

Enter the following into a Run dialog to open up Outlook with the Reading Pane disabled:

outlook.exe /nopreview

You can switch out /nopreview for /safe to disable both the Reading Pane and any active toolbar customizations.

Alternatively, you can initialize Outlook and open a specific folder by using the following command:

outlook.exe /select folder-name

Just replace folder-name with the title of a particular folder or reference like outlook:calendar.

One especially time-saving switch is /sniff. This switch opens Outlook, looks for new meeting requests in the inbox and adds anything it finds to the calendar.

You activate the switch like this:

outlook.exe /sniff

In the event that Outlook crashes, there’s a switch that can attempt to open the same profile and folders that were active before the crash:

outlook.exe /restore

Finally, if you want to initialize Outlook by using an Outlook window that’s already open (if one exists), you can use this command:

outlook.exe /recycle

Where is Cleanfreebusy?

You may notice that among these switches for Outlook 2016 the absence of a very powerful switch:

outlook.exe /cleanfreebusy

Unfortunately, this switch is not available in the 2016 edition of Outlook. Microsoft phased out this feature in the 2010 edition. There is not a direct replacement for this feature yet, perhaps in the future, there will be an alternative.

Further Steps Into the Command Line Interface

Once you’ve used a few of these switches with Outlook, you’ll hopefully find that the command line isn’t as fearsome as it looks from a distance.

Learning the concept of inputting commands is the first step toward carrying out more complex tasks from the command line. Next, why not try using it to take control of your network, speed up your Windows system, or choose the perfect emoji.

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How to Organize Your Life With Numbers for Mac

Numbers is a spreadsheet program that’s perfect for helping you get organized. As part of the iWork suite, it’s a better choice than Google Docs or Excel because it’s native to macOS and available free from the App Store.

There are plenty of apps to organize particular aspects of your life, but creating a spreadsheet in Numbers gives you much more control. What’s more, you can use Numbers to plan meals, schedule work projects, or plan your budget using templates.

So let’s get started!

Install Numbers on Your Mac From the App Store

Numbers is free to use on any Apple product: iMac, MacBook, iPhone, you name it. If you sync data using iCloud Drive, you can even open the same Numbers files on any of your Apple devices without compatibility issues.

That said, Numbers doesn’t come pre-installed on your device. You need to download it from the App Store first.

On your Mac, open the App Store from the Dock and search for Numbers. Click the Get button next to the app and enter your Apple ID details to start downloading and installing it. Numbers appears in the Launchpad as soon as the installation is complete.

With Numbers installed, get started on organizing different parts of your life.

1. Use the Meal Planner Template in Numbers

Weight loss often involves replacing impulse choices with planned meals and snacks. Numbers has a built-in Meal Planner template that’s great for reclaiming control over your eating habits. There’s even a dedicated sheet for your shopping list.

1. Open Numbers on your Mac.
2. Choose to create a New Document from the popup window or go to File > New.
3. Select the Meal Planner template under the Personal section and click Choose.

How to Use the Meal Planner Template in the Numbers App

At the top of the window, you can see two Numbers spreadsheets: the Meal Planner and the Shopping List.

From the Meal Planner sheet, start off by double-clicking the date to edit it. Then go through adding the food you want to eat for each meal every day.

For every entry, you can also link to the recipe. Highlight the text in a particular cell, then control-click and select Add Link > Web Page. Paste the link to your recipe in the box that appears.

If you want to add the same Breakfast, Lunch, or Snacks for each day, select the first cell and drag the yellow circle down to autofill the cells beneath it.

Once your meal plan is complete, go to the Shopping List sheet and add the ingredients you need for those meals. You can even edit the quantity of each item and add the particular shop you need to get it from.

Don’t forget to save your Meal Plan when you’re finished. Go to File > Save to do so.

2. Create Your Own Project Tracker

One of the hardest parts of organizing your life is keeping track of all your different projects. Luckily, it’s easy to create a project tracker in Numbers, so you can manage all your tasks from the same place.

Let’s create a new Numbers spreadsheet to track projects and to-do lists. You can edit it as much as you like to match whatever’s on your agenda.

1. Open Numbers on your Mac.
2. Choose to create a New Document from the popup window or go to File > New.
3. This time, select the Blank template at the top of the list and click Choose.

Much like the Meal Planner, it’s simpler to have separate sheets for different information. Double-click where it says Sheet 1 and rename it to Project Overview. Then click the + button to create a new sheet and call it To-Do Lists.

How to Create the Project Overview Sheet in Numbers

Open the Project Overview sheet. Think about how to group all your different projects into three or four categories, for instance: Work, Home, and Personal. Then decide how many projects you want to track for each of your categories at once.

1. In column A, from row 2 down, write Project 1, Project 2, Project 3, and so on for the number of projects you want to track.
2. Starting from column B, add your “Project Categories” to the top of each column.
3. Now fill out the name of each project for each category in the spreadsheet.

This gives you a clear overview of all the different projects you’re working on at any one time. For the individual tasks related to each project, let’s create some to-do lists.

How to Create the To-Do Lists Sheet in Numbers

Open the To-Do Lists sheet you created at the top of Numbers, then follow the steps below to create checkbox to-do lists for each of your different projects.

1. Click the A button to select the entire first column.
2. From the Format sidebar, go to the Cell tab and change the Data Format to Checkbox.
3. Click and drag to select columns C to E, then control-click and choose to Delete Selected Columns.
4. Hover the cursor over the right edge of the B column to reveal a resize tool and resize that column to 300 pt.
5. Double-click Table 1 and rename it to match a particular project.
6. Go to Edit > Duplicate Selection to create new to-do lists for each of your projects. Rearrange them by dragging the Circle in the top-left of each table.
7. Then fill out each line with a different task you need to complete for that project.

3. Use the Personal Budget Template in Numbers

A crucial step in getting organized is getting your finances in order. You get a few finance templates with Numbers and they each serve different purposes. The best one for most people to use is the Personal Budget template.

Here’s how to make the most of it.

How to Use the Personal Budget Template in Numbers

After opening a new Personal Budget template in Numbers, you should see two sheets at the top of the window: Budget and Transactions.

The Budget sheet shows a pie chart with your spending habits next to a bar chart pitting them against your budget. These visuals make it clear to see where your money is going and if you’re overspending or not.

Beneath the charts, a table lays out the different spending categories alongside your Budget and Actual amounts. Numbers works out your Actual spending from the Transactions sheet, but you need to adjust the Budget for each category yourself.

When you’re happy with the budgets, go to the Transactions sheet. Numbers uses information from this sheet to fill in the charts and table on the Budgets sheet.

Add every purchase you make into the Transactions sheet. You also need to include the amount you spent and the category it belongs to. Numbers puts it all together to tell you if you’re on track to meet your monthly budget or not.

How to Change Categories in the Numbers Personal Budget Template

The default spending categories are pretty good, but not perfect for everyone. You might want to change them to match your own spending habits. To do this, you need to change the spending categories for both the Budget and the Transaction sheets.

Changing spending categories in the Budgets sheet is as simple as renaming them from the table at the bottom of the page. You should see the names change in the graphs.

Don’t worry about the Actual numbers going to zero when you do this.

In the Transactions sheet, you need to change the dropdown menu options for every line in the table. Click and drag to select the entire Category column, starting from row 2.

In the Format sidebar, click Cell and you should see the Pop-Up Menu options for each of the categories. Use the + and – buttons to add or remove categories, or double-click existing options to rename them.

When you’re done, make sure your transactions link to the right categories. Otherwise, your budget graphs won’t be accurate.

Find More Spreadsheets to Use

Numbers isn’t as powerful as Microsoft Excel, but its design makes it easy to create simple and functional spreadsheets. Each of these projects should teach you more about how to use Numbers on your iMac, MacBook, or MacBook Pro.

But there’s even more you can do with spreadsheets that we haven’t touched on yet. Take a look at these useful Excel templates for more spreadsheet ideas you can create in Numbers.

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Found a Lost or Stolen iPhone? Here’s What to Do

Even with the best of intentions, it’s often difficult to know how to proceed when you find a lost or stolen iPhone. Fortunately, there are a few steps you can take to help return the device to its rightful owner.

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There’s no exception when it comes to other people’s property, so holding onto something that isn’t yours could be theft. Plus, all modern iPhone models are useless thanks to the Activation Lock feature.

So here’s what to do if you’ve found a lost iPhone.

1. Is the Lost iPhone Charged?

Action: Buy or borrow a charger and keep the device on and charging.

Modern smartphone batteries aren’t great, so most of the time a lost device has a day (at best) before it runs out of battery. If there’s no charge, try holding the power button (a single button on the right-hand side) to see what happens.

Provided the iPhone still works, you’ll first need to charge it. If you don’t own an iPhone yourself, you’ll either need to borrow or buy a Lightning cable. You can pick up an AmazonBasics Lightning cable for a few dollars.

2. Does It Have a Passcode Lock?

Action: Check for a passcode, but don’t try to brute-force it. Check the call log and registered Apple ID for contact details if you can access them.

Once the iPhone starts up, you’ll see a lock screen. Pressing the Home button or swiping up at the bottom of the screen—depending on which iPhone model you’ve found—will likely prompt you for a passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID.

But there’s a small chance the phone will unlock. This means the owner didn’t set a passcode, which is something all smartphone owners should do.

If the phone does unlock, you have two options to get more information. The first is to head Settings > iTunes & App Store to see what the owner’s registered Apple ID email address is. You can then send an email to the owner, informing them that you have their device.

The second is to head to Phone > Recent and check the call log. You should be able to deduce a suitable contact to call so you can inform them that you’ve found this iPhone. You should also be able to find the owner’s name listed at the top of the Contacts list in the Phone app.

3. Look to Medical ID for More Information

Action: Access the Medical ID feature, even with a locked iPhone.

If you’re still looking for the owner of a lost iPhone, try the Medical ID feature. While its main purpose is to provide important medical information to first responders in case of an emergency, it can also give you more clues about the identity of the owner.

To access the Medical ID function, access the lock screen on any iPhone and then select Emergency on the bottom-left side of the screen. You’ll then see a number pad on the screen. On the bottom-left of that screen, select Medical ID.

If the owner has set up the feature, you’ll see their name and more information about them. Hopefully, that will help you track down the owner.

4. Is the Phone in Lost Mode?

Action: Look for a message and make contact using any details provided.

Someone else’s iPhone is useless to anyone other than the owner, provided Find My iPhone is enabled. A feature called Activation Lock prevents the iPhone from being used even after a software reset, and the same feature lets the rightful owner track down lost devices.

If the iPhone has been put into Lost Mode, the owner has logged in to iCloud.com and marked the device as lost. You should see a message informing you of this, along with a message left by the owner. This should include a contact number or email address you can use to track down the owner.

If the phone connects to the internet, its location will be sent to the owner via iCloud.
You should certainly have Find My iPhone enabled on your own device under Settings > [Name] > Find My. Make sure to take a closer look at our explanation of the Find My app and everything you need to know about it.

5. Try Asking Siri

Action: Grill Siri for information to locate the owner.

Provided the phone is online, Siri can do a lot even if the device is locked. This will only work if the phone was turned on when you found it, however.

After a restart, Siri is disabled until you first unlock it. Pressing and holding the home button will trigger Siri, which then gives you a chance to ask a question to help find the owner.

A few ideas you could try:

• “Call my wife”—Or husband, mom, dad, boss, etc.
• “Read my call log”—This may show you a recent call, so you can then ask Siri to call the contact (by name).
• “Read my last message”—Will provide the contact’s name as well as the message contents.
• “Who owns this iPhone?”—Should give you the name stored in the owner’s contact entry.
• “What is my email address?”—Also try phone number, Twitter handle, and so on.

Unfortunately, it seems that Siri has a limit on the amount of information divulged before requiring a passcode. Asking Siri to read the call log, then calling any contacts you find, might be the best course of action.

6. Take a Photo

Action: Take a photo of your contact information that will sync online.

Many iPhone users have iCloud Photos enabled. That feature saves every photo and video taken by devices using your Apple ID to iCloud. This allows you to access your images on any iOS device, or a Mac, with the same Apple ID. That’s a big plus when trying to return a lost iPhone to its owner.

You don’t need to have an unlocked iPhone to snap a photo or video. On the lock screen, select the camera icon or swipe from right to left to access the camera. You can then snap a photo. The best idea would be to take a picture of your contact information.

With any luck, the image will be sent to the iCloud Photos account of the owner and they’ll see it on another device they use.

Found an iPhone? Make Contact or Hand It In

Keep in mind that if you find a lost iPhone, Activation Lock will prevent you from using it if it’s protected by Find My iPhone. It’s essentially a paperweight for as long as you have it in your possession. So don’t expect to use an iPhone you’ve found.

If none of these methods work, you may want to pop the owner’s SIM card out and take note of their carrier and the number printed on the SIM card. You can then contact the carrier, quote the number, and they may be able to help contact the owner of the device.

After trying all these options, your best bet is to take it to the police station that’s nearest to where you found the iPhone. Explain that you’ve found the phone and you’ve tried making contact, but nothing’s working.

Meanwhile, if you’re an Android owner and want to ensure that you don’t lose your phone, check out these Android anti-theft apps to protect your device.

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