With Ubuntu’s latest release out the door, we thought we’d celebrate by showing you how to make it centrally available on your network by using network boot (PXE). Overview We already showed you how to setup a PXE server in the “What Is Network Booting (PXE) and How Can You Use It?” guide, in this guide we will show you how to add the Ubuntu LiveCD to the boot options....
If you’ve ever recorded a video on your smartphone, only to find it sideways or upside down, then you know how frustrating it can be to watch it later. If you use Windows, there are a couple of excellent ways to fix this problem. We’ve got two ways to show you how to rotate a video in Windows. The first is to use the VLC video player. Rotating a video is a bit more complicated in VLC, but it’s a lighter weight download and the chances are you might already have it installed....
Use the Share Button for Captures The Share button is in the very center of the Xbox Series X or S controller, right under the Xbox button you use to access the guide. It looks like a rectangle with an arrow pointing upward. The default behavior for the share button is as follows: Capture a screenshot: Press and release the share button once. Capture a video: Press and hold the share button....
You can add variety to your music listening experience on iPhone and iPad by turning on Shuffle, which plays songs in random order. Or if you love a song, album, or playlist and want to listen to it over and over again, turn on Repeat. Here’s how. Shuffle Music with Siri Voice Commands If you’re comfortable with voice commands, the easiest way to shuffle your music is with Siri....
Docker is one of the leading platforms for building and running software containers. It comes with everything you need to use containers on either a single host or multiple distributed nodes in Swarm mode. Docker has a daemon-based architecture. The software that’s responsible for creating and starting containers is independent of the CLI process that accepts your commands. This means you’ll see errors in the CLI if you try to run commands without an active daemon connection....
The traditional way of turning your monitor off via a hotkey has been broken for a few versions now. A pretty simple Python script can bring that functionality back reliably and efficiently. The old way of turning off you monitor was through the xset command: There are a few variations on that, but since Ubuntu Karmic (9.10), it’s been broken. Some of the system calls apparently don’t get along well with this command, causing the screen to wake up after about a minute....
What if there was a command which would let you, in an easy-to-read format, view all of the hardware in your Linux system? Welcome to lshw, the great tool often overlooked even by seasoned Linux professionals. What Is lshw? lshw, A utility, or better tool, installed by default when you install Linux, provides you with a listing of hardware as found in your system. One can remember lshw by thinking about ls (the command which lets you list directory contents) and hw for hardware....
Finding Matching Lines of Text on Linux The uniq command is fast, flexible, and great at what it does. However, like many Linux commands, it has a few quirks—which is fine, as long as you know about them. If you take the plunge without a bit of insider know-how, you could well be left scratching your head at the results. We’ll point out these quirks as we go. The uniq command is perfect for those in the single-minded, designed-to-do-one-thing-and-do-it-well camp....
Google Calendar isn’t just a tool to keep track of your own events. You can subscribe to a number of special calendars that automatically update with the latest weather, sports games, air times for your favorite TV shows, and more. This is the sort of thing that a paper calendar could never do, and what makes digital calendars like Google Calendar so useful. Add some automatically updating calendars and you’ll wonder how people ever used paper calendars....
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader JFW wants to know if he’s missing out on something important by not shutting down his computer completely: What benefits, if any, do you gain from completely shutting down your computer? Would there be any side-effects of keeping a computer running continuously without a shutdown (putting it to sleep or hibernating it when it is not used)?...
If you’ve ever checked your Windows Experience Index, you might wonder whether you can increase these numbers without buying a new PC. Today we’re going to show you how to hack the WEI to show whatever numbers you want. Why You Might Want To Do This So you might be wondering why in the world would you want to do this, firstly the Windows Experience Index has an API that programs can use to enable functionality....
Fortunately, unlike the early years of wireless charging, there are no longer multiple wireless charging standards for phones. Instead, each smartphone supports Qi charging, so you can pick any Qi charger and it will charge your device. That said, to offer faster wireless charging, smartphone manufacturers have developed their own technologies to use on top of the Qi standard, which makes picking a wireless charger slightly tricky. While any Qi charger will at least charge your phone at 5W, a charger supporting your phone manufacturer’s proprietary wireless charging technology will juice it up faster....
Rod Hilton has 99 problems and most of them are with what he sees as a hack job done in the Star Wars saga by the poor execution and ordering of the prequel movies. He’s not just a fan ranting about how lame Jar-Jar Binks is; his proposal essentially saves the plot of the series and orders the movies in such a fashion that major surprises are not spoiled (watching in the I to VI order, for example, ruins the Vader reveal among other elements of the story)....
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-drive grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Simon Sheehan is curious about the state of defragmentation in modern drives: Let’s turn to some of the contributor answers to investigate Simon’s question. The Answer SuperUser contributor Daniel R. Hicks fields the question: Journeyman Geek adds in the following information about Linux file systems:...
The iPhone and iPad include several tools to help you create healthy usage habits. “Downtime” is one the most powerful and lesser known of the bunch. We’ll explain why you should use it and how to remove it if it’s enabled. What is Downtime on iPhone? “Downtime” was introduced with iOS 12 in 2018, and it was further enhanced in iOS and iPadOS 15. It’s part of Apple’s suite of tools that can limit notifications and block distractions, like Focus Mode, Screen Time, and App Limits....
Linux Mint 21, codenamed “Vanessa,” was released as a major update for Mint users on July 31, 2022. Here’s a rundown of what’s new in this version—the changes, improvements, and new features. Vanessa is the first release of the Linux Mint 21 “V” series, having a long-term support plan lasting till 2027. As you’ll see, the improvements and updates make the latest Linux Mint more efficient and advanced than its predecessors....
One of the more popular monitoring tools, thanks in part to the amount of things beyond just hardware it can monitor, in the comments was Rainmeter. Lee writes: Shinigamibob uses a wider range of tools to get a more in-depth look at difference aspects of his computer: That being said, I do have Rainmeter so I can quickly see how much RAM or CPU is being used. For anything more detailed, I just go into the task manager and sort by RAM or CPU....
ZigBee and Z-Wave are two of the main wireless protocols used in smarthome products. But they don’t connect together and for all their similarities, they have key differences, advantages, and disadvantages. Knowing what to use when is key to running a smooth smarthome. If you haven’t purchased your first smarthome product yet, you need to make several decisions on which way to go. Which hub should you buy? What Voice Assistant should you use?...
Photoshop is a powerful, but complex, graphics program that can be difficult to learn and frustrating to use. We have published many articles about tips and tricks for using Photoshop and how to fix annoying issues you may encounter. This article compiles 30 of the best tips and tricks we have documented to help you get the most out of Photoshop. 10 Common Photoshop Frustrations (and How to Fix Them in Five Minutes) Do your cursor or panels in Photoshop keep disappearing?...
Like CCleaner on Windows, BleachBit frees space by deleting unimportant files and helps maintain your privacy by deleting sensitive data. And, just like CCleaner, there’s more you can do with BleachBit than just clicking a single button. BleachBit is available in Ubuntu’s Software Center and most other Linux distributions’ software repositories. You can also download it from the BleachBit website — it even runs on Windows, too. Basic Cleaning Select the type of data you want to remove in BleachBit’s sidebar after launching it....
