Many new laptops come with NVIDIA’s Optimus technology — the laptop includes both a discrete NVIDIA GPU for gaming power and an onboard Intel GPU for power savings. The notebook switches between the two when necessary. However, this isn’t yet well-supported on Linux. Linus Torvalds had some choice words for NVIDIA regarding Optimus not working on Linux, and NVIDIA is now currently working on official support. However, if you have a laptop with Optimus support, you don’t have to wait for NVIDIA — you can use the Bumblebee project’s solution to enable Optimus on Linux today....

It’s easy to insert and customize tables in Google Docs, giving structure to data in your document. However, if a time comes when you want to merge two tables or split one table into two, it’s not an obvious process. Joining and splitting tables in Google Docs isn’t difficult. It’s just that there’s no magic button and it takes a few steps. So, let’s take a look at how to merge and split tables for your next Google Doc....

If you’ve accidentally deleted a note in Microsoft OneNote, don’t panic. There’s a good chance your deleted note is still available in a OneNote backup. Here, we’ll show you how to recover your notes in OneNote for Windows, Mac, and the web. Restore Deleted Notes in OneNote on Windows OneNote has two versions for Windows: OneNote (formerly called OneNote 2016) and OneNote for Windows 10. The steps to recover deleted notes aren’t the same for both versions, so you’ll need to find out what version of OneNote you’re using first....

There are few security problems a healthy dose of paranoia and know-how can’t take care of. Today we’re looking at how to secure your Android phone’s mobile data connection against intrusion using free software and a simple SSH tunnel. HTG Reader Michael wrote in with a simple request that we’re more than happy to fulfill: We think you’re selling yourself short with the just-smart-enough label, Michael. After all, you were able to flash your home router, configure the built-in SSH server, and set up your laptop as a client....

Twitter often seems like a firehose of information that flows by faster than we can comprehend. Luckily, it’s possible to merely take a sip by searching for tweets from a specific date or date range. Here’s how. Search Tweets from a Date Range Using Advanced Search Twitter provides both a mobile and a desktop browser Advanced Search page that lets you search for tweets posted within a certain date range....

Although you can use metered connections to get the most of your bandwidth in Windows 8, at times you may want to know how much data you have used for a single browsing session. Here’s how to do it. How to See Your Data Usage in Windows 8 Press the Win + C keyboard combination to bring up the Charms Menu, then click on Settings. Now click on your network connections....

If you’ve just opened your shiny new Kindle Fire and tried to connect it to Gmail using your own custom (not @gmail.com) email address, you might be in for a surprise: the email account wizard has no idea how to handle this scenario, even if you pick Gmail at the beginning. Here’s how to fix it. Note: we’re in the middle of doing a thorough test of the Kindle Fire, and we’ll post our in-depth review in the next few days....

We’ve shown you how to network boot the Ubuntu LiveCD. In this article we’ll show how to make some other utilities network bootable, which will give you the knowledge to replicate the procedure for other utilities you may be using. Note: this article is not geared at beginners, though you’re welcome to keep reading! Image by Steve Jurvetson Overview This guide aims to give you the tools with which, you will be able to convert utilities, to be PXEable....

Last month we showed you how to get started with Usenet using SABnzbd. Now we’re back to show you how to supercharge your SABnzbd experience with add-ons and customizations. If you’re new to the whole Usenet and SABnzbd circuit, you’ll be well served to hit up our original guide to getting started with Usenet here. If you’re interested in using Usenet and SABnzbd like a TiVo to download all your favorite TV shows make sure to check out our follow up Usenet guide focused on SickBeard—a TV management app so magical you’ll have to see it to believe it....

React error boundaries let you catch JavaScript errors that occur in child components. Any unhandled error originating below the boundary’s tree position will be caught, preventing a crash occurring. You can display your own fallback UI after an error boundary traps an error. This lets you gracefully communicate the problem to the user. They’ll be able to keep using the rest of your interface without suffering a completely crashed tab....

It’s trivial to break into a Mac using an OS X boot disk, but new Macs use a restore partition for OS installations. Here’s how you can use that partition to reset a user password and break into a Mac. All laptops that come with OS X 10.7 “Lion” or laptops that were upgraded to Lion have a restore partition for easy OS recovery. This easy-to-use recovery partition also opens up hackers to break into your Mac without needing any additional tools....

Whether you want to download files, diagnose network problems, manage your network interfaces, or view network statistics, there’s a terminal command for that. This collection contains the tried and true tools and a few newer commands. You can do most of this from a graphical desktop, although even Linux users that rarely use the terminal often launch one to use ping and other network diagnostic tools. curl & wget Use the curl or wget commands to download a file from the Internet without leaving the terminal....

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 Ben Simpson poses the following question: Do the central processing units degrade with time or are other factors at play? A supporting argument may be that mechanical devices degrade over time, While a CPU has no moving parts (other than the external fan), it does have circuits that can be damaged by heat, and voltage spikes....

If you’re doing a clean installation of Windows, installing your favorite apps again is time consuming and annoying. Ninite will install your favorite applications in one fell swoop while you walk away and do something more enjoyable. Ninite is a cool service created by two programmers in San Francisco who believe that installing software shouldn’t require work. It’s simple to use and has a large selection of popular freeware and open source applications....

Platform engineering is an evolution of DevOps. DevOps sets out principles for streamlining development using automation, autonomy, and collaboration. These qualities are also integral to platform engineering so the technique helps you achieve good DevOps performance. Understanding DevOps DevOps brings development and operations teams closer together. It focuses on using tools, systems and iterative processes to shorten feedback cycles. Successful DevOps strategies accelerate your team’s throughput without compromising on quality....

The as-a-service model maximizes efficiency so it can be more economical than traditional alternatives. Organizations only pay for what they use, making costs easier to distribute and predict. New resources can be provisioned whenever they’re needed, enabling rapid scaling in response to new business needs. While SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS all share these benefits, each one targets different use cases and user groups. In this article, we’ll look at how the three offerings slot into your tech stack and when you should choose one over another....

That’s not even close to what new smart toasters actually do, but we can dream. It’s breakfast after all. While looking at all the sophisticated smart toasters on the market, one thing becomes clear: They seem to want to do everything but actually make toast, kind of like an actor who only wants to talk about his new band. Smart toasters tend to have Mach 5 toasting speeds, advanced temperature regulation, accessories that barely relate to toasting, and the ability to handle any rogue bread....

This past month we covered topics such as how to use a 64-bit web browser on Windows, the best tips and tweaks for getting the most out of Firefox, how to check out library books on your Kindle for free, and more. Join us as we look back at the best articles for April. The Best Articles of April Note: Articles are listed as #10 through #1. Here’s 6 Great Tricks for Windows 8 that You Probably Don’t Know...

How-To Geek teaches you all kinds of useful and interesting things. Sometimes we publish special How-To Guides, which are detailed articles about how to do something. Here are the best ones that we published in 2011. The How-To Geek Guide to Getting Started with LastPass Do you tend to create passwords that are not strong enough and not varied enough? It’s a big hassle to remember a different complex password for every website you visit....

Now that Windows 8 is available, you might have started playing around with Internet Explorer 10. It comes in two different versions: the minimalist Modern UI/Metro version accessed from the Start screen and the traditional, full-featured Desktop version accessed from the Taskbar. In this article, we provide some useful tips and tricks to help you get to know both versions of Internet Explorer, especially the new Modern UI/Metro version....