Ever wonder why it’s so difficult to repair a smartphone, computer, or game console yourself? It’s no accident: companies make them that way. But thanks to “Right to Repair” legislation, it could get a lot easier to tinker with your electronic toys.
What Are “Right to Repair” Laws, and What Do They Mean for You?
Ever wonder why it’s so difficult to repair a smartphone, computer, or game console yourself? It’s no accident: companies make them that way. But thanks to “Right to Repair” legislation, it could get a lot easier to tinker with your electronic toys.
There’s a process called “commerce” running on your Mac right now. You can find it using Activity Monitor, but with a generic name like that, how are you supposed to know what it’s doing?
If you’re on Cricket Wireless and use an Android phone, there’s a reasonably decent chance you could be having issues receiving MMS messages (aka picture and video messages). Fortunately, there’s a quick and easy fix…now that we’ve actually figured out what’s going on here.
You’re browsing the applications running using Activity Monitor when you notice something you don’t recognize: nsurlstoraged. What is this, you might be wondering, and why is it using network and CPU resources? First, don’t panic: this is part of macOS.
If you work on websites, you’ll occasionally need to reset your computer’s DNS cache, particularly after editing records or changing hosts. While flushing the DNS cache on Windows is easy with a dedicated command, Mac users have to use a bit of a workaround.
Windows 10’s free upgrade offer is over, according to Microsoft. But this isn’t completely true. There are a bunch of ways you can still upgrade to Windows 10 for free and get a legitimate license, or just install Windows 10 and use it for free.
You’re looking through Activity Monitor when you notice a process you’re unfamilar with: UserEventAgent. Should you be worried? No: this is a core part of macOS.
You’re setting up a Mac firewall, or just checking what’s running using Activity Monitor, when you notice something cryptic is running: mDNSResponder. What is this process, and should you be worried? No: this is a core part of macOS.
Mechanical keyboards are great! But they’re also more complex than conventional keyboards. While they’re less likely to fail entirely, all those individual components mean you’re likely to have issues with certain switches—one for each key, somewhere between 60 and 110 of them, depending on the size of your keyboard.
Do you ever go to Google Maps on your computer, only to see a blank mother-of-pearl grid? It’s really annoying, and it doesn’t happen for any obvious reason. It’s still possible to use Google Maps when it gets like this—you can use search and find specific addresses—but the core functionality is more or less shot. It looks like this:
If you’ve had your Android device for a while, you’ve probably started to notice some lag that wasn’t there before. Apps load a bit slower, menus take a bit longer to show up. This is actually (and unfortunately) normal—here’s why.
Photoshop is an incredibly flexible program. To keep the interface flexible, Photoshop uses “Panels” for each tool or feature.
Corrupted files don’t happen too often on modern computers with good security measures in place. But when they do, it can be a nightmare. Let’s take a look at the common causes of corrupted files, how you can help prevent them, and what you can do when it happens.
You’re looking through Activity Monitor to see what’s running on your Mac, when you notice something unfamilar: coreauthd. What is this process? First of all, it’s part of macOS, so don’t worry about it being nefarious. But here’s a quick look at what it does.
So you’ve selected your parts, double- and triple-checked their compatibility, and waited for economy shipping to bring them all to your door. It’s time to get to the fun part: putting them all together.
Not to be outdone by other terrible PC manufacturers, HP has been quietly, remotely installing a telemetry service known as “HP Touchpoint Manager” on its PCs since at least November 15, 2017. It’s sending data back to HP, introducing security holes, and generally bogging PCs down.
The WMI Provider Host process is an important part of Windows, and often runs in the background. It allows other applications on your computer to request information about your system. This process shouldn’t normally use many system resources, but it may use a lot of CPU if another process on your system is behaving badly.
It’s iconic, but Microsoft wishes it wasn’t. In the 90s it was as core to the Windows experience as Paint and Solitaire, but these days it’s not seen very often.
It’s that holiday time of year again, and that means it’s over the river and through the woods to…well, fix your family’s Wi-Fi and other tech problems.
Windows normally animates windows whenever you minimize or maximize them. These animations can be disabled, if you like, making windows hide or appear immediately. This option is available on all modern versions of Windows, including Windows 7, 8, and 10.
Any browser can slow down and become cluttered over time as you install add-ons, build up history, and change settings. Firefox can “Refresh” your profile to quickly give you a clean slate while keeping your most important data. This would let you try the overhauled Firefox Quantum with a fresh profile, speed Firefox up if it’s become slow, or fix other browser problems.
Yes, Macs can get malware. Beyond traditional viruses, worms, and Trojans, there’s now a thriving ecosystem of adware and spyware programs that bombard you with ads and spy on your web browsing, just like on Windows.
So you’re using your laptop and, all of the sudden, it dies. There was no battery warning from Windows—in fact, you recently checked and Windows said you had 30% battery power left. What’s going on?
So you found something called trustd running on your Mac, and are now wondering if it can be…trusted. The good news is you have nothing to worry about: this is part of macOS.
