Quick Links A desktop overloaded with shortcuts and a taskbar filled with pinned apps can make your desktop look messy and harder to navigate. Fortunately, Windows offers plenty of customization options to make your setup more minimalist. Here’s how I keep my desktop clean—and how you may do the same. 6Keep Your Desktop Free of Shortcut Clutter Our desktops often hold more than just the shortcuts we use—they also accumulate old files we once used, duplicate shortcuts created by accident, and even shortcuts for apps we uninstalled months ago....

Quick Links Summary Computers are fragile. If you want to transport your full-tower PC from point A to point B without breaking it, you’ll have to do it right. Let’s go over a few tips that’ll make sure your PC arrives at your destination unharmed. Before you start packing up your PC to transport it, back up all essential data to the cloud. There’s always a small chance that your storage drives could break and take all your data with them....

Have you ever used a tool so much that you assume it’s open source? That was me, with more than one app on this list. They were free and dev-friendly, sometimes even on GitHub. But under the hood, they were locked down. Easy to miss—until you look closer. Open source doesn’t necessarily mean free of charge. It means the source code is publicly available, and depending on the license, you might be allowed to inspect, change, and redistribute it....

Quick Links Do you find yourself taking longer than you hoped to complete your Word document? Microsoft Word has many tools that can help to make your life easier, but knowing the following tips and tricks will go a long way to making your experience significantly more efficient. Organize Your Folders This tip may seem unusual, as it’s not something you would do in Word itself. However, taking the time tocreate foldersand save your work in the right place will save you significant time....

Quick Links Setting up your speakers requires more than simply plugging them in. Improper positioning can undermine the performance of even the finest audio systems. Here are some common speaker placement mistakes you must avoid for clear, balanced sound and to get the most out of your audio system. 1Positioning Speakers Too Close to the Wall Placing speakers too close to the wall can cause many audio problems. Sound waves reflecting off the wall candistort the audio, making it unclear....

Summary One of the biggest problems when it comes to treating internal organs is that, well, they’reinternal. Which means that either treatments have to be traumatically invasive, or medicine has to be pushed through our metabolic pathways, which isn’t as efficient and can have unwanted side effects. Now, scientists have created a “biopatch” (as seen in the journalNature) that sits below the skin or on the surface of an organ—with profound implications for medical treatments....

Summary Are you wondering if an older Raspberry Pi is still worth it? From cost savings to community support, there’s a lot to like. But with performance limitations and outdated hardware, it’s not always the best choice. This guide will explain what you’re able to expect from these older models and whether they fit your next project. A Crash Course In Older Raspberry Pi Models The Raspberry Pi Foundation, founded in 2009, has rolled out several versions of its famous single-board computers, starting with the originalRaspberry Piin 2012....

Quick Links Summary Are you a podcaster or streamer searching for a high-quality dynamic USB microphone? You may want to consider theAudio-Technica AT2040USB, which is packed with great features. I had the opportunity to test out one of these microphones, and here’s what I discovered. The AT2040USB is an ideal microphone for creators, featuring a dynamic design for excellent voice capture with added USB functionality. Combining the broadcast-quality performance of the Audio-Technica AT2040 dynamic podcast microphone with plug-and-play USB functionality makes this the ideal microphone for podcasters, streamers, and other content creators to achieve professional results....

Quick Links Some options to beef up security on your Windows computer aren’t available in the Settings app. You can find them in the Group Policy Editor, provided you’re using Windows Pro or Enterprise editions. Let’s look at several of them. To access the Group Policy Editor, press Windows+R to open the Run dialog box. Entergpedit.mscin the text and click the “OK” button. 1Screen Lockout Time Enabling the screen lockout policy locks your computer after a specified period of inactivity....

If you were to look at Saturn through a teelescope today, you’d be forgiven for being disapopinted: the rings that define the icon look of the planet have temporarily disappeared. But why? Why Have Saturn’s Rings Disappeared? Luckily for us, Saturn’s rings aren’t actually gone—they’re just borderline impossible to see at the moment. There are two main things that cause them to disappear from view: the way Saturn is tilted and how thin the rings are....

Quick Links Summary Windows won’t let you delete, move, or rename a file if a program is using it. Frustratingly, it also won’t tell you which program is using the file so that you may solve the problem. This article shows you the easiest ways to see what program is using a file in Windows 10 and 11. Why Can’t I Delete, Edit, or Rename a File That Is in Use?...

Google has officially released the ARM-compatible version of Google Drive for Windows. This means PCs powered by Snapdragon chips and other ARM hardware can finally synchronize files with Google Drive, without relying on the beta version or third-party tools. The first wave of Windows laptops with Snapdragon X Elite chips arrived last year, promising all-day battery life and great performance, but software compatibility is still rough. Microsoft added a compatibility layer that allows Windows 11 on ARM to run 32-bit and 64-bit x86 software, which covers most Windows applications and games, but some software still is not fully compatible....

Summary Have you ever grabbed your Android phone and noticed the battery is unusually low or dying too fast, only to check settings and find some random app waking up your device? You’re not alone, which is why Google is taking a proactive approach to try and fix it. Appsrandomly draining battery lifeisn’t a new problem, and I’m constantly disabling or uninstalling apps to try and squeeze as much life out of each charge as possible....