How-To Geek - For Geeks, By Geeks.

How to Enable Microsoft’s Precision Touchpad Drivers on Your Laptop

Microsoft has been trying to improve the touchpad experience on Windows 10 laptops. Laptops with “Precision Touchpads” are optimized by Microsoft, support standard gestures, and can be configured from the Settings app. Unfortunately, PC manufacturers can opt out of using Precision Touchpads. Now, there’s a way to install Precision Touchpad drivers even on laptops that don’t ship with them.

How to Download Files with Your Synology NAS (and Avoid Leaving Your Computer On at Night)

If you have a Synology NAS, you can easily configure it to download large files for you, allowing you to shut down your PC and let the NAS hum away in the background. Let’s look at how to start and schedule those downloads now.

How to Measure Distances in Google Maps for Running, Biking, and Hiking

Getting directions in Google Maps lets you easily see how far away the destination is. However, if you want to know the distance between point A and point B on a hiking or running trail, here’s how to do that in Google Maps.

How to See Twitter Notifications For Mentions, But Not Likes or Retweets

If you’ve ever posted a highly-favorited tweet or been part of a popular thread, you’ve probably known the mild annoyance of having your phone overflow with dozens of notifications for retweets and favorites. If this behavior is affecting your enjoyment of Twitter (you social media wizard, you), you’ll probably want to restrict those notifications.

How to Set Your Preferred Autofill Manager in Android Oreo

One of the best new features in Android Oreo is the system-wide autofill service. Basically, if you store passwords and form data in Chrome, this information now syncs across the system for use in apps and the like.

How to Set Up a Facebook Page

Facebook Pages are a great way to promote your business, a cause, or just your hobby. Unlike Groups, which are more of a community feature, Facebook Pages work mostly like a regular Facebook Profile. You can use them to share posts, photos, videos, and whatever else you want. You can also send and receive messages. It’s basically just a profile but for something that’s not human. The biggest difference is that any number of people can Like and Follow the page.

How to Automatically Enable Do Not Disturb on Your iPhone While Driving

A new feature in iOS 11, “Do Not Disturb While Driving” figures out if you’re driving or not and toggles Do Not Disturb accordingly. Here’s how to enable the feature.

How to Automatically Open Articles in Safari’s Reader Mode

Every Mac user should ditch Chrome for Safari, and Safari 11 makes one of its best features even better. Reader Mode, which shows you only the article you want to read without any sidebars ads, or other clutter, can now be set to open automatically on specific websites. This is perfect if there’s a site with content you love, but design choices you absolutely despise.

How To Adjust Mouse Settings in Windows

The old Windows properties window has been around for a long time. In Windows 8 and 10, it probably would have been a good idea to move some of those settings into the new Settings app, but of course that didn’t happen. To get anything useful done, you’ll need to dive into the good old-fashioned Control Panel.

How to Fix the “Screen Overlay Detected” Error on Android

Starting with Android Marshmallow, there’s a curious error that sometimes shows its face, but it can be hard to decipher what’s causing it. The “screen overlay detected” error won’t allow certain apps to launch, which makes it a real nuisance.

How to Post Panoramas to Instagram

Now that you can post multiple photos at once to Instagram, people are starting to take advantage of the feature. If you crop a large panorama seamlessly, you can post the different segments as multiple photos and get a swipeable panorama.

How to Use Android’s Built-In Tethering When Your Carrier Blocks It

Tethering your phone’s internet connection, which allows users to share their phone’s data connection with other devices, is really useful if you’re out and about with no Wi-Fi, but some carriers block the feature from your phone. If you get an error message when you try to tether—something like “Account not set up for tethering”—here’s a fix.

iOS 11’s Control Center Doesn’t Truly Disable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth: Here’s What to Do Instead

That shiny new Control Center in iOS 11 doesn’t actually let you disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth anymore. You can toggle Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off from the Control Center, but the hardware radios will still be running and they’ll turn back on completely at 5 a.m. Yes, this is really weird.

How to Temporarily Disable Touch ID and Require a Passcode in iOS 11

iOS 11 has a new feature that allows you to discreetly disable the Touch ID unlock functionality, requiring the PIN code for access to the device. Here’s why that’s important (and how to use the new locking feature).

How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad by Offloading Unused Apps

Apps can consume a lot of space on an iPhone or iPad. In iOS 11, a new feature allows you to remove an app from your device without removing the app’s data. In other words, you can remove the app and free up space without losing anything—when you redownload the app in the future, you can immediately pick up right where you left off.

Safari Now Disables Auto-Playing Videos. Here’s How to Allow Them for Certain Sites

You’re trying to do some reading when you hear it: a video playing somewhere off-screen. You curse under your breath, scroll down to find the offending media, then try to find back your place in the article.

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The Medical Term For Sleepwalking Is?

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Is It Worth Upgrading to the iPhone 8 or iPhone X?

As summer turns to autumn, the leaves turn brown and the new iPhone is announced. At How-To Geek, we don’t get outside much, so we’re obviously more interested in the new iPhones than whatever trees are doing. Apple introduces the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and the iPhone X. We’re not going to address the profoundly weird start to the keynote, so the big question is: should you upgrade?

Equifax Got Hacked: How to Stop Identity Thieves from Opening Accounts in Your Name

Everybody is getting hacked left and right. Anthem lost 80 million records in 2015. The US government got hacked and lost personal data for millions, all the way down to fingerprint data. Now Equifax, a credit bureau, got hacked. So how can you protect yourself from criminals opening accounts in your name?

Should You Get an “Ultra HD” 4K TV?

Walk through any electronics showroom and most TVs you see will be some form of “Ultra HD” 4K. There are plenty of models available, and they’re cheaper than ever. But should you buy one?

What’s the Best Antivirus for Windows 10? (Is Windows Defender Good Enough?)

Windows 10 won’t hassle you to install an antivirus like Windows 7 did. Since Windows 8, Windows now includes a built-in antivirus called Windows Defender (which used to be available separately as Microsoft Security Essentials). But is it really the best for protecting your PC–or even just good enough?

18 Things You May Not Have Known Google Photos Can Do

Google Photos may seem like a simple image hosting service, but it’s actually quite powerful. Google Photos bridges the gap between cloud storage, image hosting, and image sharing services, giving stiff competition to Flickr, iCloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive.

Wi-Fi Security: Should You Use WPA2-AES, WPA2-TKIP, or Both?

Many routers provide WPA2-PSK (TKIP), WPA2-PSK (AES), and WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES) as options. Choose the wrong one, though, and you’ll have a slower, less-secure network.

How to Fix Windows Update When It Gets Stuck

Windows Update is supposed to work silently in the background, but it may refuse to continue if it can’t install an individual update.

10 Handy Uses for Your Old iPad or Android Tablet

Tablet sales are slumping at the moment, probably as a result of big smartphones and convertible laptops chip away at a tablet’s usefulness. But if you have one or more tablets at home gathering dust while you happily poke away at your giant smartphone, there are probably some good ways to put them to use rather than selling them or recycling them. Here are a few ideas.

How to Change Microsoft Edge to Search Google Instead of Bing

Microsoft’s new Edge browser uses Bing as its default search engine, but if you prefer something else you can change that. Edge can use any search engine that supports OpenSearch as its default.

How to Turn Your Windows PC Into a Wi-Fi Hotspot

Windows can turn your PC into a wireless hotspot, allowing it to share its wired or wireless Internet connection with other wireless devices. But how you set it up that depends on what version of Windows you’re running. Here’s how it all works.