How-To Geek

Using your Android to control your computer is a great way to interact with programs. Your phone can be used a trackpad, or could be used to use a media player using custom controls. Monect lets you take things further by turning your Android device into all manner of peripherals.

Automation is always a good thing, and we’ve looked at various ways in which you can automate tasks on your Android. AutoMagic takes a different approach to things, making it possible to create flow charts that are used to trigger actions based on various conditions.

Upgrading to Windows 8 was rather different to previous versions of the operating system – this time it could be done entirely online. You may well have decided to keep upgrade costs as low as possible by not buying a backup DVD. Here’s how you can create your own.

In recent years it has become common for Microsoft to release trial or preview versions of its big-name products. This has been the case with Windows 8 as well as Office 2013 giving consumer the chance to try before they buy. If you downloaded the trial version of the suite, you can gain some extra try-out time with this handy hack.

Taking photos with your Android phone is great, but there comes a time when you need to get those photos onto your computer. A little while back we took a look at SnapPea, a handy tool for managing phones and tablets from Windows; SnapPea Photos is a Chrome extension designed specifically with photo management in mind.

Any parent will know that giving their children access to the internet is a double-edged sword. Access to the world’s biggest free library is invaluable, but there are plenty of unpleasant corners of the web that young eyes are best shielded from.  If you’re using Windows 8, Family Safety can be used to lock down your kids’ accounts.

Most of us have more than one email address these days – it makes it easier to keep different areas of life separate. But having to switch between email accounts can be a pain. With Gmail, you can set things up so you can send from multiple accounts without the need to keep switching.

There are probably countless streaming media services that you use regularly – YouTube for music videos, and any number of websites for listening to streaming music and live radio. Forget using endless apps and website after website; Tomahawk lets you access everything in the same place.

To help keep online accounts secure, two-step verification is becoming increasingly common. Apple is the latest firm to introduce this extra level of authentication, meaning that logging into your account requires more than just a basic password.

The battery life of cell phones just doesn’t seem to be as long as it used to be. If your Android device is dying faster than you would like, Wakelock Detector can help you to home in on apps you have installed that might be killing your battery or preventing the screen from switching off.

We have looked at some of the various ways in which remote access of your computer can be achieved, including using TeamViewer and VNC, but if you have Chrome installed you can do the same with nothing more than a browser extension.

Choosing a ringtone volume can be hard – there is no one setting that is right for all environments. What works perfectly at home may be too quiet for when you’re on the train, but too loud for the office.  Intelligent Ringer can be used to adjust ringtone volume according to ambient noise levels.

There’s a lot to be said for app stores and the way they simplify the installation and updating of software, but Linux users can take advantage of the apt-get command to gain more control over things. With Chocolatey, Windows users can do much the same from the command line.

The accessibility options that are available in Windows have been designed to help people that have difficulty using a computer because of a condition or impairment, but there are plenty of interesting options that could prove incredibly useful to everyone. We will reveal how the Ease of Access Center could help you.

When you’re in a meeting, on the train, or have muted your phone for some other reason, vibrations can let you know when you receive a call. But with Vybe, you can create unique vibration patterns for contacts so you’ll know who’s calling without the need to look at your phone.

Windows 8 has been with us for a good few months now. From consumer previews to the released products, there has been much venting of spleen over the changes made by Microsoft. But after initially hating Windows 8, I started to love it. Genuinely.

There are numerous applications which, when launched, result in a UAC (User Account Control) warning being displayed. There are reasons why this security measure is a good idea, but it can also be extremely irritating. ElevatedShortcut lets you create shortcuts that bypass the warning.

Printing documents is easy enough – fire up the appropriate app, load the file and hit Print. But when it comes to Android, you probably find that you email or copy files from your phone or tablet so you can print from your PC. Things are a great deal easier if you turn to Cloud Print.

There can be few computer users who do not have at least one social networking account – the likes of Facebook and Twitter are just so prevalent these days. But while it’s easy to sign up for an account, closing one down is not always so simple. Until now.

Install an app from Google Play and, while the installer takes the form of an APK files, you’re never given the opportunity to download the file directly. Using the APK Downloader extension for Chrome, you can download any APK you need so you have it as a backup.

Automation is great. Anything that can be done to reduce the amount of effort needed to achieve a goal is to be welcomed with open arms. We have looked at various tools that can be used to automate tasks you might carry out on a regular basis, including using Wappwolf to automate cloud storage and using IFTTT to automate backups.  Now we’ll show how IFTTT can be used in conjunction with Yahoo Pipes to create custom news feeds and alerts.

How much of your life is recorded online? Spend a moment considering this and it’s likely to be a terrifying idea. You may not consider yourself the type of person to keep a journal, or even a blog, but over the years you have probably posted thousands of words on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

There are numerous modern apps that are a built into Windows 8 and they are featured prominently on the Start screen. It may well be the case that you don’t want to use them because they just aren’t apps you’re interested in, or it may be that you have found a better alternative.

The Growl notification system is something that will be familiar to Mac users, but it is something that is also available for Windows. It is an incredibly versatile tool that can be used to monitor system and program notifications in a variety of ways, including remotely.

There are lots of tools that can be used to automate various tasks on your computer, and we have looked at how the likes of Wappwolf and IFTTT can help to automate your online life. AutomateIt brings very much the same idea to Android, making it possible to automate your phone or tablet in a variety of ways.