01 January 2018

How to Set Up a VPN in Windows 10


A virtual private network (VPN) is a network setup that allows you to connect to a private network from outside that private network. Doing this can be useful for many reasons, which we’ll cover down below, but getting a VPN set up can be confusing if it’s your first time. To be clear, VPNs aren’t difficult to use so don’t be intimidated or overwhelmed. In fact, you’ll be up and running in less than 10 minutes if you just follow this mini-guide. Here’s everything you need to know about setting up a VPN in Windows 10. Why Use a VPN?...

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Adobe Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts 101: The Most Useful Commands


You can always tell a Photoshop pro by how little they touch their mouse. You may know everything there is to know about Photoshop’s UI. Yet, if you’re not at least a bit familiar with the hundreds of keyboard command sitting just beyond your fingertips, you’ll always fall short. Until now, that is. The following is a list of Photoshop keyboard commands you absolutely, positively have to know. No one’s saying you have to memorize them all, mind you. Practice regularly and you’ll learn them faster. And bookmark this page so you can always come back quickly! While I don’t...

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Apple Will Now Replace Your iPhone Battery for $29


Apple doesn’t issue apologies lightly. And the company doesn’t like missing an opportunity to make money. However, Apple ended 2017 offering a begrudging apology, and reducing the price of replacement iPhone batteries. Bringing Batterygate to a satisfying conclusion. In December 2017, Apple finally admitted to what many people had suspected for a long time. Namely, that the company was slowing down old iPhones. This was intentional, not to force users to upgrade, but to prevent old iPhones from shutting down when they were overworked. While Apple’s intentions were pure, some users weren’t happy with what they saw as a feature...

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A look back at Uber’s hellish year


 We endured plenty of the drama Uber packed in for every five-hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes of 2017 — and what a year! From protests to a major sexual harassment probe, the ousting of co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick, the crowning of new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the promising hints of that long-awaited IPO and an on-going lawsuit with Google over self-driving cars.… Read More
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Are Android Ad Trackers Invading Your Privacy?


Privacy on Google’s Android operating system is always under scrutiny. Between malicious apps stealing your data and integrated trackers, Android users have a rough ride. But the customization, the open-source development platform, and the huge range of handsets attract hundreds of millions of users, myself included. Stories involving tracking usually wash over me. But this time around, researchers at Yale Privacy Lab and French nonprofit Exodus Privacy have documented the startling extent of Android ad trackers. Privacy Plundering Apps Exodus security researchers identified 71 trackers in more than 800 Android apps. The apps have billions of downloads between them. The...

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Hack 10 Facebook Problems and Errors to Fix Them Forever


Nearly everyone uses Facebook, but can we all agree that it kind of sucks? For every great story or picture you see on Facebook, you’ll have a dozen low-quality memes, annoying posts, and even frustrating user interface elements. Let’s put a stop to all that for good. We’ll cover fixes for some of Facebook’s most obnoxious issues so you don’t have to put up with them anymore. 1. Shut Up Excessive Posters We all know someone like this: Your uncle posts too many political rants. Your grandpa has no idea how to use Facebook and posts nonsense every day. That...

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11 Linux To-Do Apps, Timers, and Extensions to Help You Stay on Task


Minds wander. It’s part of what they do. The more you attempt to carry around in your head, the more you’re liable to forget. Nonetheless, you have tasks to get done, and you have limited time to do them. Are you also a Linux user? In that case, you may want to check out these Linux to-do apps and extensions to help you stay focused. GNOME GNOME is the default desktop for many popular Linux operating systems such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian. There’s a decent chance this is the interface you’re using, so let’s start here. 1. GNOME To...

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How Bitcoin’s Blockchain Technology Is Changing the Media


Bitcoin had a successful 2017, with the value of the cryptocurrency rising nearly 2,000 percent in a single year. Its meteoric rise brought cryptocurrencies into the mainstream, with competitors like Ethereum and Litecoin also seeing large gains. While this has been an interesting financial development, it has turned Bitcoin from a digital currency into a financial asset to be bought and sold. This has largely eclipsed what made Bitcoin so revolutionary: blockchain technology. First laid out in Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper, the blockchain is a decentralised, distributed ledger. The cryptographically sealed data is distributed across the network, preventing it from...

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What were your best nine Instagram photos from 2017?


 You might have noticed a new end-of-year trend on Instagram the past few days. If so, you can thank 2017bestnine.com, a website that lets you automatically collect and collage your most-liked photos of 2017. Best Nine has been around for a while, so many of you may be familiar with the tool already. But for those of you who are new to that Best Nine game, here’s how it works. First of… Read More
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31 December 2017

Twitter ended the year on a fascinating run


 It’s been pretty easy to point at Twitter and, with each quarterly moment when it discloses its financial guts, let out a long exasperated sigh. But then something interesting happened in the back half of 2017: it went on a rather spectacular run, and though ending on a bit of a slump, it looks like it could finish the year up more than 25 percent — which, by Twitter terms, is… Read More

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The food revolution may have just needed a cup of Blue Bottle


 Each massive exit in the tech ecosystem usually follows the same cycle: an upstart becomes a huge business, it goes public or sells for a huge sum of money, many of the best people that built it take off and then they use their newfound wealth to start companies. But in addition to tech, the venture community has its own pet project: coffee. Read More

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30 December 2017

Apple’s $29 iPhone battery replacements are available starting today


 Those $29 battery out-of-warranty replacements Apple promised are now available for impacted users with an iPhone 6 or later. The company was initially aiming for a late-January timeframe in the States when it first offered up the discount, following blowback against its admission that it had slowed down older model phones to maximize performance. “We expected to need more time to be… Read More

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The MakeUseOf’s Online Shopping Guide


Internet shopping requires knowing a lot more than just products. You need to know where to find reviews, how to shop safely, how to compare prices, and — above all else — how to get the best deals from your favorite sites, like Amazon, Walmart, and many other online retailers.This guide is available to download as a free PDF. Download The MakeUseOf’s Online Shopping Guide now. Feel free to copy and share this with your friends and family. We cover all that and more in the MakeUseOf guide to online shopping. 1. Introduction Why an e-book about shopping? Holiday e-commerce sales...

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Crunch Report | Apple Apologizes for Slowing Down iPhones


Apple apologizes for slowing down iPhones, humans spent $200 million on apps this Christmas and Google retires the Pixel C tablet. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
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Your Backbone Will Thank You: 6 Great Standing Desk Designs


Sitting can kill you or at least cause serious health issues. Unfortunately, many jobs require sitting at desks for several hours a day. While it’s tough to change what you do for a living, it’s pretty easy to switch your desk, and therefore your sitting and standing habits. An excellent means of remaining active at work is with a standing desk. Learn all about the best standing desks available, why you should use a standing desk, and what to consider when selecting one. Why Use a Standing Desk As a freelance writer working from home or a co-working space, I struggle with...

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How to Turn Your Amazon Fire TV Stick Into a Fire TV Box


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Your Amazon Fire TV Stick is a great device, isn’t it? Ideal for watching Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, or installing Kodi! Then there’s apps like Plex for streaming video from a PC to your TV. But this HDMI TV stick isn’t so good for other things. For instance, you’re limited only to wireless networking. Also, there is no way to connect a USB drive and view your own video files. Contrast this with the more expensive Amazon Fire TV, and you’ll see you’re missing more than just the 4K video streaming. Fortunately, there’s an answer. With a few cables you...

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Facebook has a 100-person engineering team that helps advertisers build tools and infrastructure


Facebook Solutions Engineering team Stories about Facebook’s advertising business tend to focus on the big numbers — its billions of users, millions of advertisers or its enormous lead over any competitor that’s not named Google. But Facebook says that one of its success stories in recent years involves a relatively small group of engineers — in fact, originally it was just one engineer, Vastal Mehta,… Read More
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Amazon did a lot of funky stuff this year and it’s paying off


 Holy hell, it’s been a year for Amazon. Jeff Bezos’ former-online-bookstore dumped $13.7 billion to buy a bunch of grocery stores, that speaker you talk to in your living room that Amazon makes is really popular and a bunch of server farms Amazon runs generate more than $10 billion in revenue annually. Read More

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Is Bitmoji a Threat to Your Privacy?


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Bitmoji was the number one most-downloaded app from Apple’s App Store in 2017. Millions of people have downloaded the app to create goofy, cute representations of themselves to share with friends and family. But what information does Bitmoji collect? Who does the company share that information with? And why does Bitmoji need full keyboard access? After asking a number of these privacy questions, I thought I’d dig into Snap, Inc.’s privacy policy to see if I could find the answer. Here’s what I found out. Bitmoji and Snapchat First of all, I wasn’t aware that Bitmoji and Snapchat were made...

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iFixit drops its iPhone battery replacement to $29, matching Apple’s apology price


 iFixit has never been particularly fond of Apple’s repair policies. The company’s gadgets regularly rack up poor repairability scores on the site. The site’s taking another jab at the tech giant today, dropping the price of its battery replacement kits to $29 — matching the cost of out-of-warranty battery replacements being offered up as consolation for its iPhone… Read More

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