Whether you’re troubleshooting network issues or just trying to conserve bandwidth, it’s handy to watch your Mac’s network usage over time. With Activity Monitor, Apple makes it easy to keep an eye on network activity at a gl…
If you often run processor-intensive apps, it’s good to keep an eye on your Mac’s CPU usage. Luckily, Apple makes it easy to get a quick glance at CPU Usage and CPU History by changing Activity Monitor’s Dock icon. Here’s how…
Sometimes you’re working on a project and need access to a high-quality version of a Windows 10 application icon, but you can’t find one on the internet. Luckily, a free utility called IconViewer makes it easy to extract a hi…
It’s often a good idea to let your Mac sleep after a period of time when you’re not using it, but the way recent versions of macOS present sleep-mode options in System Preferences feels counter-intuitive. Here’s how to sort i…
If you’re seeing application icons on your Mac with a crossed-out symbol on top of them, it means that macOS can’t run the application. While there could be several causes, the most likely is that you recently upgraded macOS,…
On Sept. 13, 2000, Apple released Mac OS X Public Beta, the first public release of OS X to include the Dock. It was also the first to feature the unprecedented eye candy that was the Aqua interface. It marked the beginning o…
It seems like every browser has a hidden game these days. Chrome has a dinosaur game, Edge has surfing, and Firefox has . . . unicorn pong? Yep, you read that right—here’s how to play it.
Sometimes your Windows 10 PC slows to a crawl, perhaps accompanied by a whirring fan and programs that barely respond. Often the problem is an application that is using a large share of the CPU’s power, leaving little left fo…
By default, every time you open a Mac application by clicking it on your Dock, the app icon will briefly “hop” in an animated sequence as the app loads. If you find this annoying, Apple makes it easy to turn off. Here’s how….
Virtual desktops are a handy way to juggle multiple workspaces in Windows 10. There are several ways to quickly switch between virtual desktops, including several lesser-known keyboard shortcuts—we’ll cover them all below….
Icons were invented as a quick way to visually identify information on a computer, but sometimes a Windows 10 shortcut icon is so generic that it doesn’t feel useful. In that case, Windows makes it easy to customize the icon….
Dropbox is a handy way to synchronize files across devices via the cloud. By default, Dropbox starts whenever you turn on your Windows PC or Mac, but sometimes you might not want it to. Here’s how to make sure it doesn’t laun…
If you have “Do Not Disturb” enabled on your iPhone and someone sends you a text message, they may receive an “Auto-Reply” message as a response. Here’s how to configure that message and decide who gets to see it….
Screen Time on Mac is a handy way to keep track of your app usage and restrict content for children, but its notifications can be annoying. To turn them off, you can disable notifications or simply disable Screen Time itself….
If you use an iPhone and see a telephone number in a note or on a website, you can often tap it directly to place a call. But if that special link doesn’t show up, you can also “Copy” the phone number and “Paste” it directly …
If you’re a veteran of Windows, you’re probably familiar with using Task Manager to deal with applications that freeze or checking memory usage. On a Mac, those tasks fall to a Force Quit dialog or a utility called Activity M…
If your Mac is suddenly feeling very sluggish and unresponsive, it’s possible that a runaway application is consuming a large percentage of your CPU’s processing power. To find out, we’ll use a built-in macOS utility called A…
While using Task Manager for keeping an eye on your Windows 10 PC, sometimes you end up using one tab (say, “Performance”) more than others. In that case, you can set that tab as one you see when you start Task Manager. Here’…
Does your iPhone screen keep going dark or turning off while reading something, checking a shopping list, or any other time you don’t want it to? There’s an easy way to turn off auto-lock on an iPhone in Settings. Here’s how….
Have you ever wanted to charge your iPhone or iPad using a cable hooked to your Windows 10 PC, but every time you plug it in, iTunes starts up? It can get annoying pretty quickly. Here’s how to fix it….
The resolution (in pixels by pixels) of your Mac’s display determines how much information you can fit on screen and how sharp the image is, so it’s important to know. If you run a full-screen game or application at native re…
If you’d like to copy files to a USB flash drive on Windows 10—perhaps to back them up or transfer them to another computer—it’s easy to do using File Explorer. Here’s how.
These days, social media gets all the attention, but the Bulletin Board System (BBS), a relic from a kinder, gentler time in computer communications, persists. Each BBS is its own retro-flavored community with messages, text-…
Task Manager is an indispensable tool in Windows 10, and it’s good to keep it handy while troubleshooting your PC. With one simple setting, Task Manager will always remain visible on screen—no matter how many windows you ha…
If you’re worried about local air quality from wildfires, pollen, or environmental pollution, you can check the current Air Quality Index (AQI) using your iPhone or iPad. Currently, Apple only supports checking the AQI in cer…
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