How-To Geek - For Geeks, By Geeks.

What Is Wake-on-LAN, and How Do I Enable It?

Technology often yields ridiculous conveniences, like being able to turn on your computer from miles away without pushing the power button. Wake-on-LAN has been around for a while, so let’s see how it works and how we can enable it.

The Most Useful Chat and Bot Commands In Discord

Like the IRC chat of old, Discord comes with a set of slash commands that you can use to express yourself or do useful things like search for GIFs or read text aloud. Better yet, you can add bots to your Discord server to get even more functionality out of your server. Here are the most useful chat commands and bots for Discord.

How to Set Up Your Own Discord Chat Server

Discord is an excellent, free chat application that was built for gamers, but is useful for anyone. It comes with Slack-style text chat, group voice chat channels, and plenty of tools to manage your users. It’s a great tool for getting a community together or talking with friends while you play games. Here’s how to set up your own server.

Why You Shouldn’t Turn Off Virtual Memory on Your Mac

Your Mac comes with a set amount of physical memory applications can use. Your running programs, open files, and other data your Mac is actively working with are stored in this physical memory. But that’s a simplification—applications can also use “virtual memory”, which your Mac can compress and temporarily store on disk.

How to Add Attachments in Gmail for Android

If you don’t use email as part of your day to day life, it can easily be one of those things that seems more complicated than it is. But there’s no need to break out the computer if you simply need to email something—a picture, document, something—because you can easily do it directly from your phone.

How to Stop Twitter Highlights from Pestering You with Unrelated Notifications

Social networks are always trying to get you to “engage” more with their service and recently, Twitter has introduced a new trick: Highlights notifications.

How to Get More Detailed Weather Info From Alexa

Alexa’s built-in weather forecast is handy for those who just want the basic forecast for the day, but it doesn’t do much more than that. However, with a third party skill called Big Sky, you can make Alexa spit out a ton of information about the weather and ask it nearly anything about what’s coming.

How to Install Chrome OS from a USB Drive and Run It on Any PC

Google only officially supports running Chrome OS on Chromebooks, but don’t let that stop you. You can put the open source version of Chrome OS on a USB drive and boot it on any computer without installing it, just like you’d run a Linux distribution from a USB drive.

How to Override Chrome’s “Quit Everything” Ctrl+Shift+Q Shortcut

Google seems to think there’s a good reason to have a shortcut that will kill every single one of your tabs at once. We disagree. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Q will close every Chrome tab or window you have open and ruin your work. If you’d rather keep your work where it is, here’s a workaround to make sure that doesn’t happen.

How to Completely Remove a Book From Your Kindle Library

You’ve probably been happily reading ebooks on your Kindle (or the Kindle app) for years, accruing a nice digital library full of interesting titles. But what if, for some reason, someone else needs to see that library of yours…and there are some items within that you’d rather they didn’t? Say, perhaps, one of those steamy romance novels that makes up a massive 34% of fiction sales in US?

How to Avoid Toll Roads in Google Maps

No one likes to pay to be able to drive on a specific road, especially if you’re just passing through. Thankfully, Google Maps has an easy way to bypass toll roads when using navigation.

What Is “Bulb Mode” on My Camera?

If you’ve turned the shutter speed dial on your camera past 30 seconds, you might have noticed the strangely named “Bulb” mode. This is a throwback from the first film cameras, but it’s still useful today.

How to Remotely Troubleshoot a Friend’s Windows PC Without Any Extra Software

Windows offers a few built-in tools for performing remote assistance over the Internet. These tools allow you to take remote control of another person’s computer so you can help them troubleshoot it while you’re on the phone with them. They work similarly to Remote Desktop, but are available on all editions of Windows and are easy to set up.

How to Activate Third Party Game Codes in Steam

Unbeknownst to many people, it’s not a requirement that you purchase a game directly from Valve in order to use it with their Steam gaming platform—and, in fact, it’s often advantageous to purchase your game from a third party retailer. Let’s take a look at how to get your third party games into your Steam account.

How to Listen to (and Delete) Every Command You’ve Ever Given to Alexa

Believe it or not, the Amazon Echo has something similar to what your web browser history is on your computer: Alexa records and logs every single command you’ve ever given. Here’s how to access it and see (and hear) everything you’ve ever said to her.

What Is launchd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac?

You’re scrolling through Activity Monitor when you notice a process you’re not familiar with: launchd. Should you be worried? No: this is actually a cord part of macOS.

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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 Find and Remove Duplicate Files on Windows

Duplicate file finders scan your hard drive for unnecessary duplicated files and help you remove them, freeing up space. Here are our picks for the best duplicate file finders, whether you’re looking for something easy to use, an application you may already have installed, or a powerful tool with the most advanced filters.

Amazon Echo vs. Google Home: Which One Should You Buy?

Amazon blew the industry wide open with its release of the Echo back in 2014, and has since become the company’s most popular hardware product. However, Google has since gotten in on the fun with the Google Home, a direct Echo competitor that aims to reign supreme. But which one should you buy if you’re in the market for a virtual home assistant? Here are some key points to know about both devices to see which one might be best suited for you.

Which Carrier Has the Best Unlimited Plan? AT&T vs Verizon vs Sprint vs T-Mobile

All of a sudden, it seems all the mobile carriers are offering unlimited plans. So, how do they stack up?

What’s New in Windows 10’s Creators Update

The Windows 10 Creators Update—codenamed Redstone 2—will begin rolling out on April 11, 2017. Like other updates to Windows 10, it’s free, and includes a host of new features. It will be rolled out slowly like the Anniversary Update, so it will be a few months before Microsoft offers it to everyone.

How to Get Windows 10’s Creators Update Now

Microsoft will start rolling out Windows 10’s Creators Update starting April 11, but it will be a few months before every PC gets it. If you don’t want to wait, you can download the Creators Update from Microsoft right now.

Basic Computer Security: How to Protect Yourself from Viruses, Hackers, and Thieves

People often think of computer security as something technical and complicated. And when you get into the nitty-gritty, it can be—but the most important stuff is actually very simple. Here are the basic, important things you should do to make yourself safer online.

Microsoft, Please Stop Breaking My PC With Windows 10’s Automatic Updates

Hey Microsoft, could you please stop breaking my PC? The latest WPD driver update released on March 8, 2017 is just the latest in a long string of bad updates. If Windows 10 is going to force these updates on my system, the least Microsoft could do is test them properly first.

How to Get HD TV Channels for Free (Without Paying for Cable)

Remember TV antennas? Well, they still exist. A digital TV antenna allows you to watch local TV stations for free, all without paying a dime to a cable provider.

Windows 10’s Settings Are a Mess, and Microsoft Doesn’t Seem to Care

It’s been over four years since Microsoft first released the PC Settings interface with Windows 8, but the Control Panel and Settings app are still a confusing, split experience. There still isn’t a single interface, as there is on other operating systems, and Microsoft is seriously dragging their feet on consolidating them.