RGB lighting in computer hardware, especially gaming-branded gear, is a divisive subject. Either you think it’s really cool and you want it in all your stuff, or you have good taste. (I kid, I kid.) But despite the rather flashy nature of LED-soaked “battlestation” gaming setups, there’s actually a surprising amount of utility to be found deep in all that rainbow-colored extravagance. Even if you aren’t a fan of the aesthetic, it’s worth considering the next time you’re assembling a gaming PC.
How to Make Your RGB Gaming Gear Actually Useful
RGB lighting in computer hardware, especially gaming-branded gear, is a divisive subject. Either you think it’s really cool and you want it in all your stuff, or you have good taste. (I kid, I kid.) But despite the rather flashy nature of LED-soaked “battlestation” gaming setups, there’s actually a surprising amount of utility to be found deep in all that rainbow-colored extravagance. Even if you aren’t a fan of the aesthetic, it’s worth considering the next time you’re assembling a gaming PC.
The Windows 10 taskbar works much like previous Windows versions, offering shortcuts and icons for every running app. Windows 10 offers all kinds of ways to customize the taskbar to your liking, and we’re here to guide you through what you can do.
You’ve got a brand new Mac. Congratulations! But all of your files and applications are still on your old Mac. Here’s how to migrate them in just a few clicks.
For most of its long history, Microsoft Word has used a proprietary format for its saved files, DOC. Starting in 2007 with the updated version of Word (and Microsoft Office), the default save format was changed to DOCX. This wasn’t simply a belated 1990s “extreme” version of the format—that extra X stands for the Office Open XML standard. What’s the difference, and which one should you use?
The “Reset Your PC” feature in Windows 10 restores your PC to its factory default settings, including all that bloatware your PC manufacturer included. But the new “Fresh Start” feature in Windows 10’s Creators Update makes it much easier to get a clean Windows system.
Windows doesn’t do the best job of scaling on high-resolution monitors. And if you have multiple monitors with different pixel densities, things can get even more confusing. Thankfully, Windows 10 has settings that can help.
Not sure you love the touch bar? Maybe you mostly just don’t love what’s on it. No worries: that’s easy to change.
OneNote is simple at first glance: it’s a place to write notes and maybe clip articles from the web for future refernce. It’s an organizational tool, and a good one. But unlike other Office products, Microsoft offers OneNote for free and is constantly adding new updates.
Microsoft’s “Shared Experiences” allow you to start a task on one device and finish it on another, or easily set up a remote control or other companion app on a smartphone.
RELATED: Basic Computer Security: How to Protect Yourself from Viruses, Hackers, and Thieves
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.
Windows 10’s Creators Update has a switch you can flip to only allow apps from the Windows Store. This feature can also be used to whitelist your existing desktop apps, only allowing your currently installed applications to run and blocking new applications until you allow them. It’s similar to Gatekeeper on macOS.
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.
If you’ve been trained on Microsoft Word since you started using a computer, maybe you’ve never looked at those other writing options in Windows. Notepad and WordPad are both developed by Microsoft itself, and included in every copy of Windows. Don’t dismiss them out of hand—while neither are as powerful as paid software in the same niches, they might just do for you.
Sometimes, when sending an email, you want the replies to go to a different email address than you sent the original from. You can do this in Outlook for individual messages or for all messages sent from a specific email account.
You can use Microsoft Outlook with just about any email account, including Gmail—but Outlook doesn’t provide a built-in way to sync your Gmail contacts. If you’ve amassed a bunch of contacts in either service, you’ll have to import them from the other manually to use them.
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.
Amazon can notify you about purchases, shipments, and delivery delays by email, text message, or push notifications from the Amazon app. It’s even possible to enable all three types of notifications, and you’ll be bombarded with duplicate notifications whenever you order something.
Some apps, like Dropbox and Steam, will ask to “control this computer using accessibility features.” But what the heck does that even mean?
You’ve been taking photos and videos, downloading documents, and installing apps like there’s no tomorrow. All of a sudden you realize you’re running out of room on your phone. What do you do?
If you are heading out of town, you might want to put a note on your email to let people know you won’t be available, or to contact somebody else while you’re away.
Windows 10 has a lot of built-in advertising. This isn’t just about the free upgrade offer: Even if you purchase a new PC that comes with a Windows 10 license or spend $200 for a copy of Windows 10 Professional, you’ll see ads in your operating system. You can, however, disable a lot of it.
Do you ever feel annoyed that Outlook doesn’t mark messages as read as soon as you click and view them in the Reading Pane? Here we show you how to make Outlook mark them as read as soon as they’re opened.
Windows doesn’t show file extensions by default, but you can change a single setting and make Windows 7, 8, or 10 always show you each file’s full file extension.
Outlook remembers every email address you’ve typed into email messages. These email addresses become part of the auto-complete list and matching items from that list are suggested as you type in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields.
