You’ve seen how to remove vocals to create karaoke tracks, but what if you don’t want the music? Using a similar process and good source audio, you can ditch the instruments and keep the vocals for an a cappella effect. One Caveat Isolating the vocals works like removing vocals; in both cases we combine the original waveform with an inverted waveform to “subtract” the part we don’t want. It will leave us, in this case, with the vocal track....

Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux all allow you to schedule boot-ups, shut-downs, and wake-ups. You can have your computer automatically power up in the morning and automatically shut down at night, if you’d like. This is less necessary than ever thanks to sleep mode — a typical laptop just enters low-power sleep mode it can quickly resume from when it’s not being used — but may still be useful for desktop PCs....

Windows Live Mesh is set to shut down on February 13, 2013. If you still depend on Windows Live Mesh, you’ll need to find some alternatives soon. Remember to download your files before the deadline, too! While SkyDrive is the successor to Windows Live Mesh, it has a different design philosophy and offers less features. Many Live Mesh users may be surprised at the missing features when they transition to SkyDrive....

Opera, like all popular web browsers, contains features that sacrifice privacy for convenience. Opera contains some features that send every website you visit to its servers, but also offers excellent, fine-grained control of cookies. One notable omission from Opera is the “do-not-track” feature found in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. In Opera’s defense, most websites ignore the do-not-track request and track you anyway. Opera Turbo Opera Turbo, a feature from Opera’s mobile browsers, uses Opera’s proxy servers to speed up your browsing on slow connections....

Windows 8 encourages you to set up a separate user account for everyone who uses the computer. However, you might want to buy an app – such as Angry Birds – and allow other people to use it. By default, you can’t do this. Each user account has their own Windows Store account with their own purchased apps. However, there’s a way to share purchased apps so you don’t have to buy them again for each user....

By design, Metro apps in Windows 8 are not meant to be shut down, because you wouldn’t normally shut down apps on a phone or tablet. Therefore, you won’t find an exit command or a close button, like you’re used to. However, if you really want to shut down a Metro app, there are a few ways you can do this. Use the Keyboard to Close a Metro App The quickest and easiest way to shut down a Metro app is to press Alt + F4....

Netflix is constantly adding new content, and the company doesn’t want you to forget it. You get emails or notifications when Netflix adds new shows, sends you recommendations, or even adds new features to its apps. Here’s how to turn off all those pestergrams. How to Stop Netflix from Sending Emails as of 2020 Update: Netflix has changed its website and hidden the Communication Settings options deeper within the streaming service’s menu....

Twitch streamers who play background music have been hit with DMCA takedown notices for using copyrighted songs. Some of these clips were posted years ago. If you manually disable all clips from being made, you can protect yourself from potential flags in the future. The company hasn’t yet provided creators with a tool to remove all flagged clips with a single click. That’s why streamers with a large library of saved clips are at risk of being repeatedly flagged, or even banned....

The Swype keyboard for Android replaces pecking at letters with gliding your fingers over them. Swype automatically interprets your gesture and figures out the word you meant to type. Swype is possible thanks to Android’s flexibility — third-party developers can replace your system’s keyboard, offering new text-entry experiences. iPhone users are out of luck. Switching to Swype Many Android devices come with the Swype keyboard, but it isn’t enabled by default....

Trying to remember, based on the titles alone, what order a series of books goes in can be quite frustrating. Read on as we show you how to annotate and sort your book titles as they’re transferred to your ebook reader for frustration-free reading. Here’s a common situation: you’ve transferred a series of books to your ebook reader and, once on the reader, there is no easy way to tell the books apart....

If you think Photoshop is the most powerful tool in a photographer’s toolbox, think again. Whether you’re using freeware, Adobe Camera Raw, or Lightroom, Raw developing tools are the best way to turn good pictures into great ones. Raw editors have very specific tools for making very fine tuned adjustments, as well as powerful, image transforming changes. But the program has a lot of new tools to learn, most of which don’t appear obvious and easy....

One of the most common tasks people perform aside from adding data to a spreadsheet is analyzing it. But did you know that Microsoft Excel has a built-in feature specifically for this? It’s called Analyze Data, and it can help you see trends, patterns, rankings, and more. Analyze Data was renamed from a previous feature called Ideas. It’s available to Microsoft 365 subscribers on Windows, Mac, and the web....

How to use the US Windows Store from Another Country Press the Win + X keyboard combination, or right click in the bottom left hand corner of your screen to open the WinX menu, then launch the Control Panel. Now change the Control Panel’s view to the Small icons view. Then head into the Region settings. When the Region settings open you will need to switch over to the Location tab....

With picture-in-picture mode, you can have your favorite video playing over other open windows on your Windows 11, 10, 8, or 7 PC. You can use this mode on some of the popular video sites including YouTube and Netflix. Watch Online Videos in Picture-in-Picture on Windows To watch an online video (such as a YouTube video) in picture-in-picture mode on your Windows PC, use a modern web browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge....

With image technology progressing faster than ever, High-Def has become the standard, giving TV buyers more options at cheaper prices. But what’s different in all these confusing TVs, and what should you know before buying one? If you’re considering buying a television this Holiday season for a loved one (or simply for yourself), it can be a big help to know what to look for. Take a look to find out what sets HD televisions apart, learn some of the confusing jargon associated with them, and see a comparison of four of the types of HDTVs commonly sold today....

Logitech says the Zone Vibe 100s are “professional enough for the office and perfect for working from home.” I used them as my primary headphones to see whether or not they matched these claims. Throughout weeks of testing, the headphones’ comfort, controls, and sound quality thoroughly impressed me. This headset is an outstanding value as long as you know its limitations, and thankfully, those limitations are few and far between....

Creating a background image for your webpage (or desktop background) isn’t challenging at all. In fact, even a newbie Photoshop user can bash one out in about ten seconds. Here’s the simplest of simple methods with surprising, great results. Offsetting the Image Find an appropriate image, like this one from Flickr. You can use any image at all, but some images will work better than others as a repeating background....

Linux has become increasingly consumer friendly, but still, the wide majority of commercial software is only available for Windows and Macs. Dual-booting between Windows and Linux has been a popular option for years, but this is a frustrating solution since you have to reboot into the other operating system each time you want to run a specific application. With virtualization, you’ll never have to make this tradeoff. VMware Player makes it quick and easy to install any edition of Windows in a virtual machine....

There may be no point to it… it must be a stupid geek trick! Here’s how you can convert some of your images into sound files and hear what your photographs are secretly saying to you. Maybe you’re an electronic music composer looking for a new source of samples. Maybe you’re just a geek looking to goof around with some image files! In hardly no time at all, you can convert your images into weird unpredictable sounds, just for the heck of it....

Cloud storage is a must have for any geek, and Dropbox is leading the way with its simplicity and affordable prices. With SecretSync you can take full advantage of Dropbox without giving up your privacy by encrypting sensitive documents easily. While Dropbox does store your files encrypted on their servers, users do not have access to the encryption keys and if files are requested by government agencies, Dropbox has the ability to decrypt your information and hand over the requested files....