Internet Explorer has a secret mode called InPrivate which is pretty much the same as Chrome’s incognito mode. It can be accessed on the desktop by right-clicking on the Internet Explorer icon on the taskbar, but how do you open an InPrivate tab in the Metro IE? Read on to find out. Opening an InPrivate Tab in the Metro Internet Explorer Press the Windows key to switch over to the Metro Start screen and open Internet Explorer....

This isn’t just a question of TSA compliance; this is a question of convenience. If you plan to bring a bunch of large electronics on your next vacation, you need to be able to organize them in your carry-on bag. Otherwise, your flight will be an even bigger annoyance. You Have to Pack Electronics in a Carry-On Bag Lithium-ion batteries are a relatively stable source of power. But, if you manage to puncture or overheat a Li-ion battery, it will burst into flames....

If you’re making a public API or website, you’re probably worried about performance. Rate limiting can help prevent abuse from basic DDoS attacks, and it’s pretty easy to set up for Blazor/ASP.NET Core applications. Why Rate Limit Requests? There are plenty of reasons to rate limit requests. Most services should probably set some kind of rate limit, because no reasonable human is going to be making 100 requests a second for ten minutes straight....

So you have a bunch of files with sloppy-looking names. It’s not that the names are wrong, but they’re all lowercase, missing spaces, and generally messy. Not a problem for Total Commander’s multi-rename tool! Read on and see. Getting Total Commander Total Commander is a powerhouse file management utility. It’s a “dual-pane” file manager, which basically means it looks like this: If that makes you think of ancient DOS-era file managers such as Norton Commander, you’ve got the right idea — that’s where Total Commander comes from....

Have you ever expected your PC to go into sleep mode only to come back and find it is still powered on? We know we certainly have, here’s how to check what’s keeping it awake. How to See Which App is Blocking Your PC from Going into Sleep Mode Press the Win + X keyboard combination or right click in the bottom left hand corner of your screen to bring up the Windows Tools Menu, then launch an admin command prompt....

How to Set Up Voice Access Windows 11, like Windows 10, includes voice control as an accessibility feature. Windows Speech Recognition isn’t enabled by default, so that’s where we’ll start. Click the Start button and type “Settings” into the search bar, and then click “Open” or hit Enter. Alternatively, you can click the small gear icon in the new Start Menu. Look at the left-hand side of the Settings window, and click “Accessibility....

Windows 8 comes with a new hybrid boot system, this means that your PC is never really off. It also means that Windows has the permission to wake your PC as it needs. Here’s how to stop it from waking up your PC to do maintenance tasks. How to Stop Windows 8 Waking Up Your PC to Run Maintenance Right click in the bottom left hand corner of your screen to bring up the WinX menu and launch the Control Panel....

If you’re a PC gamer who longs for the ability to play on the go, Steam Link may be the answer you’ve been looking for. With this on your Android phone, you can stream games from your PC to your phone. What is Steam Link? In a nutshell, Steam Link is a way to stream games from your Steam library to another device. The original Steam Link is a physical set top box that you connect to your TV and then use to stream games from your gaming PC to your TV....

Do you need to upload a very large file to store online or email to a friend? Unfortunately, whether you’re emailing a file or using online storage sites like SkyDrive, there’s a limit on the size of files you can use. Here’s how to get around the limits. Skydrive only lets you add files up to 50 MB, and while the Dropbox desktop client lets you add really large files, the web interface has a 300 MB limit, so if you were on another PC and wanted to add giant files to your Dropbox, you’d need to split them....

New versions of Windows don’t fully support classic DOS games and other old applications — this is where DOSBox comes in. It provides a full DOS environment that runs ancient DOS apps on modern operating systems. We’ve written about using the D-Fend Reloaded front-end for DOSBox in the past, but what if you just want to use DOSBox itself? We’ll show you to how to mount directories, use DOSBox’s internal commands, execute programs and use DOSBox’s keyboard shortcuts like a pro....

Windows 8 was clearly designed with touch screens in mind. Using Windows 8 with a mouse can be disorienting at first — many of the tried-and-true Windows interface conventions have changed. You can still get around Windows 8 and use all its features with your mouse, although it feels a bit awkward at times. If you’re using Windows 8 on a PC instead of a tablet — like most users — you’ll need to get acquainted with its interface....

Most of us are guilty of coasting on our digital camera’s “auto” settings. But with a few quick lessons on the basic elements of proper exposure, you can learn how to be a more effective photographer, with or without it. Photography, as we learned in the last installment of “Photography with How-To Geek,” is all about light. This time around, we’ll learn more about the various parts of what goes into producing a properly exposed picture, so you can better understand what your auto settings are doing, or better yet, understand how to get those results with your own manual settings....

We have shown you how to install Active Directory on your network, but it’s pointless to have a Domain Controller unless you add your machines to the Domain, so today we’re going to cover how to do that. Note: this is part of our ongoing series teaching IT administration basics, and might not apply to everybody. Adding a Computer to an Active Directory Domain is not hard by any means, but there are 3 things you should always remember:...

If you download a lot of apps from the Windows 8 Store, install your own programs, and pin those programs to the Metro Start screen, the screen can become a mess. However, you can group tiles on the Metro Start screen and label those groups. After installing software, here’s what our Metro screen looks like. It’s a jumble of programs, and as we install more programs, it’ll only get worse....

We at How-To Geek are grateful to all our readers and hope we have enlightened you about all kinds of interesting topics. Here are the 20 articles that were the most popular in 2011. How To Remove Vocals From Music Tracks Using Audacity Do you like to make your own karaoke? Maybe you have some music you like but you don’t like the person who sings the songs. The following article shows you a few simple steps to remove vocals from your music files using the free program Audacity....

If you like to use multiple operating systems but don’t have extra computers to spare, we at How-To Geek have can help you set up your computer or tablet to run more than one operating system. Windows 7 and 8 If you want to try Windows 8 and either don’t have a spare computer or don’t have the hardware for running virtualization software, you can dual boot Windows 7 and Windows 8 on the same machine....

Every week we bring you interesting trivia from the annuals of geekdom. This week in Geek History witnessed the birth of Linux creator Linus Torvalds, the patent for FM radio, and the release of wildly popular 80s arcade game Q*Bert. Read on to learn more about each event. Birth of Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Shortly after Christmas of 1969 Linus Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland to parents who, we think it’s safe to say, had no idea that their child would grown up to be the man who provided the answer to the question “What else would you use if you weren’t using Windows or Mac?...

Docker tags are used to identify images by name. Each image can have multiple tags assigned. Tags look similar to my-image:latest, with the part before the colon defining the image name and the latter section specifying the version. You can tag an image without anything after the colon. Your image will be automatically given latest as its version tag. This is a common source of confusion for newcomers to Docker....

Continuing our series on using Windows Server 2008 as a desktop OS, today we’ll talk about how to re-enable the sound features, which normally aren’t needed on a server, but would be useful if you are using it as a desktop. Before proceeding, make sure you’ve read parts one and two of this series for setting up Server 2008 and enabling themes. RELATED: Using Server 2008 R2 as a Desktop OS: Themes (Part 2)...

Paying to use social media? That might seem crazy, but that’s the idea of “Twitter Blue.” For $3 per month, you get additional features that aren’t available to free users. Is it really worth it? Let’s find out. Twitter is a unique social network. It’s certainly not as popular as Facebook, but the people who do use Twitter tend to be highly engaged. Twitter Blue is a way for these “power users” to get even more features....