How To

Use Android’s Dialler App to Search for Nearby Places

If you’ve just upgraded to Android Lollipop you might be slightly overwhelmed by all the new features and options at your disposal: The deeper you dig, the more surprises you discover. Here’s a tip for finding phone numbers and information for local businesses and venues, using the stock Dialler app rather than Google Maps. You … Continued

How To

How To Bring Back Deleted Contacts, Photos and Files With iCloud.com

Little by little, Apple is upgrading the online iCloud portal to bring its features up to speed with comparable services like Google Drive or Dropbox. Its file recovery powers recently got a boost, with added options to restore contacts and calendars. Here’s how to find the settings you need. Log into iCloud.com and you might … Continued

How To

How To Stop Videos From Auto-Playing in Your Browser

Whether it’s a music clip on YouTube, a Flash ad on a news site or the latest viral sensation on Facebook, most videos you come across on today’s web want to get going without any input from you—and that can cause problems with bandwidth as well as audio output you weren’t expecting. Here’s how to … Continued

How To

Pintasking Gives Your Android Device a Shortcut Taskbar

The customization options open to third-party Android apps mean you can completely overhaul your device’s interface, should you want to. Pintasking is more subtle in its changes—it works like a Windows taskbar for your Android smartphone or tablet, giving you instant access to the apps and the options you use most often. The app runs … Continued

How To

How to Make Your iPad Kid-Friendly

If you spend any time around young children you’ll know what a soothing and calming influence a tablet can be, but it’s potentially a pretty dangerous one too—there’s plenty of unwholesome content out there on the internet and app store for your little friend to accidentally stumble across. Here are the best ways to make … Continued

How To

Use Dropbox to Keep a Shared List of Links or Bookmarks

Dropbox is one of those services that’s always getting a minor upgrade or two in the background without anyone really noticing. One of the newest features added to the web interface is the ability to drag-and-drop links into a Dropbox folder for safe keeping—the feature’s rather rudimentary right now, but it’s a useful way of … Continued

How To

Add a Widget Shortcut on Android to Get Home With Just One Tap

If you’re a Google Maps user on Android you can set up customized 1×1 widgets on the home screen that will give you directions straight home from wherever you happen to be. The setup process also gives us an excuse to check out the new Maps app interface Google has rolled out over the last … Continued

How To

How to Maximize Battery Life on Windows 10

Whether you’ve upgraded to Windows 10 on your laptop or bought a brand new machine, you’re going to want to eke out as much battery juice as you can while you’re on the go. Microsoft’s shiny new OS includes a new native battery saver feature — and there are a few other tricks you can … Continued

How To

How to Snooze Tabs Until Later in Firefox

Tab management isn’t always easy, and your browser of choice no doubt comes with an option or two to combat tab overload. The latest tool is SnoozeTabs, an experimental new utility for Firefox. The extension isn’t official yet—it’s part of a new Mozilla initiative called Idea Town that lets anyone test new features ahead of … Continued

How To

4 Tips for a More Secure Lock Screen

The lock screen on your phone and tablet is all that stands in the way of an unwanted visitor and everything in your digital life, so best be sure there are as few chinks in the armor as possible. Here are the settings on the latest versions of Android and iOS to be aware of … Continued

How To

How To Get Instant Movie Reviews From Google

In Google’s ideal world, you would never have to leave the search results page to find the information you need, which is why it continues to extend its Knowledge Graph strategy to bring you more bite-sized summaries before you’ve clicked through to any other site. The latest stream of data to be added to Google’s … Continued

How To

How to Finally Catch Up on Your Read-It-Later Backlog

The internet’s a big place and growing all the time—it’s no surprise that many of us rely on a read-it-later tool to stockpile articles and posts we just don’t have time to get to immediately. That’s fine, to a point, but these reading lists can quickly spiral out of control to daunting lengths. Get everything … Continued

How To

Use Clipper to Supercharge Android’s Clipboard

The clipboard is such a simple but essential tool everywhere from high-end desktops to low-end smartphones, but you don’t necessarily have to settle for the limited functionality that comes your device. Clipper is a useful third-party utility that adds some clever extra features to phones and tablets running Android. There are two flavors of Clipper: … Continued

How To

Fix All Your Facebook Mistakes With the Activity Log

You may not yet have stumbled across the Activity Log page in your wanderings around Facebook, but it’s worth exploring. It provides a blow-by-blow account of everything you do on the social network, and you can use it to take back likes or comments, find your favorite posts again, change your privacy settings and more. … Continued

How To

Swap Your Smartphone’s Default Apps for These Excellent Alternatives

You could just stick with the native apps that came pre-installed on your smartphone—there’s nothing wrong with them—but you’d be missing out on a wealth of excellent alternatives on both Android and iOS. We’ve collected the best second choices in all the key categories. Mailbox for email Mailbox is now owned by Dropbox and wants … Continued

How To

How to Customize the File Explorer Interface in Windows 10

File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer) is your way into your PC—whether you’re looking for settings, files or peripherals, this is often where you’ll be starting your search (it’s pinned to the taskbar for a reason). Windows 10 brings a new look to the File Explorer interface, and here’s how to tweak it to … Continued

How To

The Complete Guide to Clearing Space on Your Smartphone

It’s one of the most unwelcome alerts you can expect on your mobile device: storage space is running low. That means no more room for your photos, your offline playlists, and myriad problems updating your apps and OS. If you find yourself in such a predicament, don’t panic—here’s how to navigate your way out. Finding … Continued

How To

You Can Bring Back the Tags on YouTube for More Flexible Searches

Back in 2012, YouTube started hiding the tags associated with videos to stop people copying popular combinations. They can still be attached to clips—and they’re still factored into searches—but they’re not visible while you’re browsing around the site. If you find them useful, you can bring them back with the help of a simple Chrome … Continued

How To

Use IFTTT To Automatically Text Based on Your Location

IFTTT is an incredibly useful tool for all kinds of tasks, which is why we talk about it so regularly. The platform continues to expand its smartphone integrations for Android and iOS users, and one of the best ways you can take advantage is by automatically alerting your significant other when you’re heading home. We’re … Continued

How To

How to Change a Blank Account Picture in Android Lollipop

If you’ve made the upgrade to Android Lollipop then one minor annoyance you might have come across is a blank avatar at the top of the quick settings drawer and everywhere else accounts are listed in the mobile OS. You don’t have to settle for this anonymous silhouette, but it’s kind of tricky to change. … Continued