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Make Music with the Right Apps iPhone and iPad users have access to some of the best apps, particularly when it comes to making music. Not only is the platform relatively straightforward to develop for, but Apple’s low-latency implementation of audio technologies has also helped iOS become the platform of choice for mobile producers. One of the most accessible apps is Apple’s own GarageBand. This first-party digital audio workstation (DAW) allows you to play, record, and program music for free....

Two Different Ways of Storing Data on a Disk Hard drives store data in “tracks,” which are circular paths typically oriented in concentric rings on the top and bottom surfaces of a hard disk platter. Each hard disk unit can contain multiple platters, which allows the drive to store more data. Historically, manufacturers have increased storage capacity in hard disk models by either increasing the number of platters in the drive or increasing the write density on the disk....

For the sake of this article I am going to start at the top of the document on the right side under the title. Then click Insert then Shapes on the Ribbon to select a shape from the Flowchart section. You can can then draw an outline for the size of this object on the document. You then will see how it will look right away. To link the shapes on your flow chart there is a multitude of options....

Electronics hobbyist Stephen Hobley wanted to see if he could create an etching solution that wasn’t as dangerous and noxious smelling at traditional muriatic acid solutions. By combining regular white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and table salt, he created a homemade etching solution from ingredients safe enough to store in your pantry. The only downside to his recipe is that, compared to traditional etching solutions, the process takes a little bit longer so you’ll have to leave your board in the solution longer....

Once a week we round up some of the tips and tricks you mail in and share them with everyone. This week we’re looking at monitoring your Android device’s battery, DIY camera stabilizers, and a handy Chrome tool for tidying up web pages. Monitor Your Battery with Battery Doctor Alfred writes in with the following Android-centric tip: Not bad indeed, thanks for sharing Alfred! DIY Camera Stabilizer from PVC Pipe Rick writes in with the following camera/camcorder tip:...

Everybody that’s ever used Windows has at least heard of the Blue Screen of Death, even if they have been lucky enough to never encounter one themselves. Here’s how to make a BSOD in any color you want, using a couple of clicks. Note: following the technique in this article WILL crash your PC, every single time, without fail… it’s kinda the point, after all. Isn’t the black and green BSOD a lot more geeky?...

When Windows 8 was finally released to everybody they updated the Mail app to support IMAP, which means you now use any generic email account in the Metro Mail app. Here’s how to get set up. How to Get Generic IMAP Accounts Set Up in the Metro Mail App The first thing you need to do is hit the Windows button to switch to the Start Screen, then launch the Mail app....

Google Chrome hides the “https://” and “www.” in web addresses until you click twice in the address field. If you’d rather see the full URL, you can do it in two clicks. You’ll see “https://www.howtogeek.com” instead of “howtogeek.com”. Just right-click in Chrome’s address bar select “Always show full URLs” to make Chrome show full URLs. Chrome will now always show the full URL of every web address you open....

If you’re getting bored of the default theme in your Office desktop apps, you can change the color and background to give it a more personalized feel. It’s simple and only requires a few simple steps, so let’s get to it. Changing the Office Color Theme via App Options By default, Office uses what it calls the “Colorful” theme. This theme gives the title bar the color of its respective app....

You Don’t Need a Hub Anymore One of the big advantages of using a smart home hub is the unified experience for all of your devices. No matter the brand, as long as they can connect to the hub, you can control them with one app, whereas smart devices that don’t use a hub require their own third-party apps. If you mix and match several different brands of smart devices, it’s easy to see how this becomes a pain....

You can add a nice decorative element to your document using a drop cap. While Google Docs doesn’t offer a drop-cap feature like Microsoft Word, you can still create one in just a few minutes. A drop cap is the first letter of a word in a paragraph or a block of text. It’s an upper case letter that’s larger than the rest of the text and can stretch two or more lines....

Have you ever opened a webpage only to have all sorts of multimedia on the page just start playing? Firefox has a hidden feature that was designed to prevent situations just like that. Read on to find out how to enable it. Enabling Click To Play Extension in Firefox Open Firefox and navigate to about:config. You will be sarcastically warned that you about to void your warranty, just click on the “I’ll be careful, I promise!...

Can You Use HDR? HDR (High Dynamic Range) is first and foremost a feature of your display. In other words, your TV or monitor needs to have the physical capabilities necessary to display an HDR image. In Windows 11, you need a number of things to make HDR work: An HDR display with support for the HDR10 standard. (You may need a new monitor. ) At least a DisplayPort 1. 4 or HDMI2....

Color in digital photos doesn’t always end up the way you want, or even the way you see it. Thankfully, Photoshop, GIMP and Paint.NET all have excellent color correction tools, which you’ll find can solve your various color woes. It can be a pain to take a photograph and find that the color is oddly affected by the environment, lighting, or perhaps the choices you made when you shot the image in the first place....

Google Photos has a feature that automatically curates and surfaces old photos in the form of “Memories.” The unfortunate thing about memories is that they’re not always good memories. Thankfully, Google allows you to exclude people—and even pets—from Memories. The Memories feature is available to anyone who backs up their images to Google Photos. You can see the Memories row at the top of the main “Photos” tab in the mobile app....

With specific hardware configurations, Windows refuses to let you change the Critical Battery Level below a specific point. If you’ve got a big battery, this prevents you from using every last bit of juice. Thankfully, there are two easy workarounds. We’ve already shown you How To Tweak the Low Battery Action on Your Windows 7 Laptop, but Windows can be stubborn. On my particular laptop, it won’t let me set the critical battery level to anything below 5%; it changes back to 5% as soon as I click something else....

If you find yourself with a Mac where fonts are misbehaving, it’s easy to restore them to their default state using macOS’s built-in Font Book app. Here’s how to do it. What Does Restoring Fonts Do? Since system fonts cannot be uninstalled on a Mac, restoring fonts does not install anything, as you might expect. Instead, it actually uninstalls all the “nonstandard” fonts that you have installed on your system....

Want to give macOS Mojave a spin, but don’t feel ready to upgrade from High Sierra? You can quickly set Mojave up in a virtual machine, for free. Parallels makes it painless to set up virtual machines, and Parallels Desktop Lite is a free version that can make Linux and macOS virtual machines for free. Even better: this software works with the macOS Mojave Beta as of right now, meaning you can get a Mojave virtual machine set up quickly without having to deal with the command line or other nonsense....

How to Delete Specific Typed Paths From the Auto-Suggest Box If you manually enter paths into the Windows Explorer address bar, it can become filled with suggestions that were only used once or twice. Heres a quick registry hack to delete the ones that you don’t use often. Press the Windows Key and R to bring up a run box and type regedit, then hit enter. When the registry editor opens, navigate to the following path:...

If you’re in a meeting or at a movie or show, you can prevent your Apple Watch from bothering you with notifications. Notifications can be silenced on your iPhone using the “Do Not Disturb” feature, and you can do the same on your Apple Watch. If the “Do Not Disturb” feature on your Apple Watch mirrors your iPhone, changing the setting on either device will change it on the other....