How-To Geek - For Geeks, By Geeks.

What Is “Enhance Pointer Precision” in Windows?

The “Enhance Pointer Precision” setting in Windows can actually make you less precise with your mouse in many situations. This poorly understood feature is enabled by default in Windows, and is a form of mouse acceleration.

How to Install a Wired Security Camera System

If you’ve decided to get a wired security camera system instead of a Wi-Fi camera, the setup is a bit more involved, but you’ll end up with a better system in the end. Here’s how to install wired security cameras.

What Is opendirectoryd, and Why Is It Running On my Mac?

You’re checking Activity Monitor, seeing what’s taking up resources on your Mac, when you notice a process called opendirectoryd. What does that even mean?

How to Set Up Your Wi-Fi Connected Roomba

iRobot has a few different models of Roomba vacuums, but the Wi-Fi connected Roombas are definitely some of the most convenient. You can start or schedule cleaning jobs from your phone, ring your Roomba from your phone if you can’t find it, and even start cleaning using Alexa or Google Assistant. If you just got a Wi-Fi capable Roomba, here’s how to set yours up.

How to Use Safe Mode to Fix Your Windows PC (and When You Should)

Windows’ Safe Mode is an essential tool. On computers infected with malware or crashing because of buggy drivers, Safe Mode may be the only way to start the computer.

Is Now a Good Time to Buy a New NVIDIA or AMD Graphics Card?

A few years ago, people were predicting the death of PC gaming as we know it. Those people are feasting on an abundance of humble pie, as PC games remain a cornerstone of the industry: digital delivery gives us more variety than ever before, and even the relatively niche market of performance gaming hardware has never been more healthy. But even the most humble of PC gamers needs a graphics card (well, sort of), and it’s one of the most frequent upgrades gamers make. But is now a good time to buy one?

Quick Tip: You Can Swipe Cards Away in Android Auto to Dismiss Them

Android Auto is a highly useful tool in the car. It provides music, navigation, traffic notifications, and quick access to calls and messages. The trouble is, some of these things generate cards on Auto’s home screen, and that can get annoying after a while.

How to Allow (or Disallow) Direct Messaging from Everyone on Twitter

By default, only people you follow can send you direct messages on Twitter. This is just one of the ways Twitter tries to keep harassment to a minimum. If you want your DMs to be open to anyone, however, you’ve got to enable a setting.

How to Manually and Automatically Update Your Synology NAS Packages

Keeping the operating system of your Synology NAS up to date is only half of the smooth home server experience: the other half is keeping all your application packages up to date, too. Let’s look at how to manually update your packages as well as how to automate the process.

How to Give Digital “eKeys” for Your Kwikset Kevo to Other Users

The Kwikset Kevo allows you to lock and unlock your door without the need for actual keys. However, what if you want others to have access to your house, especially family members? Here’s how to give “eKeys” to other household members, as well as guests.

Quit and Hide macOS Apps from the Command+Tab Interface

Command+Tab is the main keyboard shortcut for switching applications in macOS. Hold Command then press Tab—you’ll see icons representing every application open on your Mac, as shown above. Press Tab again until you switch to the application you want.

How to Delete Items From Your Amazon Browsing History

Amazon uses your shopping and browsing history to give you recommendations and show you products that you might like. Unfortunately, that also means your recommendations get screwed up when you clicked on that link for a dumb product on Amazon you thought was funny. Here’s how to selectively remove items from your Amazon browsing history.

How to Load DRM-Free eBooks Onto Your Kindle

The Kindle is a fantastic reading device, but it’s almost entirely reliant upon Amazon’s closed retail system for buying books. That’s by design, of course—it’s an Amazon gadget, they want you to spend money on their store. But if you have a collection of eBooks obtained somewhere else, designed for cross-platform reading in another format without the typical DRM, it’s possible to get them loaded onto your Kindle fairly easily.

What Is EA Access for Xbox One, and Is It Worth It?

EA Access for Xbox One gives you access to more than 50 games, discounts, and trials of new EA games before they’re released. But is the monthly (or yearly) subscription fee really worth it?

What Is Dynamic Range in Photography?

In photography, the “dynamic range” is the difference between the darkest and lightest tones in an image, generally pure black and pure white. It’s more often used to talk about the maximum dynamic range a camera is capable of.

How to Use Pushbullet to Sync All Sorts of Stuff Between Your PC and Android Phone

If you spend a lot of time at your computer, there’s a good chance you grab your phone somewhere between seven and 7,000 times per day to check notifications, reply to texts, and a lot more. Wouldn’t it be easier to do all this directly from your computer?

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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.

Everything You Can Do With Windows 10’s New Bash Shell

Windows 10’s Anniversary Update brings a “Bash on Ubuntu on Windows” environment to Windows 10. But don’t be deceived: This is more than just a Bash shell. It’s a full compatibility layer for running Linux applications on Windows.

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.