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What You Need Other than that, you just need the Alexa app on your phone, which you probably already have downloaded. But if not, it’s available for iPhone and Android. Prepare Your Smarthome Devices Before you actually sit down to add smarthome devices to your Echo, we’d strongly recommend doing a little updating and housekeeping on the smarthome side of things. In our experience, Alexa takes a fairly literal approach to importing things and works best with updated software....

Whether you want to listen to music on your smartphone or watch movies on your iPad, you may need to convert you media files from one format to another depending on what your devices support. Transmageddon Video Transcoder is a great media converter for Ubuntu. It converts audio and video files, it has a simple interface, and it’s free. Installation is easy. Just type this command in the terminal:...

Deleting animations from a PowerPoint presentation is simple and quick, but what if you just want to disable the animations during a particular presentation? Good news; there’s a way. Deleting Single (or Multiple) Object Animations Let’s say you have a presentation that, though you’re happy with the content, you’d like to remove all of the animations and start over. No problem. Though PowerPoint doesn’t currently have a feature that allows you to wipe all animations from a presentation at once, you can delete them slide by slide, which is still a pretty quick and painless task....

These instructions apply to both Microsoft’s new open-source Chromium-based Edge browser and the original version of Microsoft Edge that came with Windows 10. Press F11 to Toggle Full-Screen Mode With Microsoft Edge open, you can press the F11 key on your keyboard to enter full-screen mode at any time. Press F11 again to exit full-screen mode. F11 toggles full-screen mode on and off. This keyboard shortcut works in all popular web browsers, including Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox....

Which iPhones Support ProRes Video Recording? Launched in 2021, the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max feature an upgraded camera system to support the new ProRes video mode. Using the Camera app, you can record 4K videos at 30 frames per second on an iPhone 13 Pro (or Pro Max), but you’ll need one with at least 256GB storage. The 128GB model can only record 1080p ProRes videos at 60 frames per second....

How to Add Your Google Calendar to Alexa Start by opening up the Alexa app on your smartphone and tapping on the menu button in the top-left corner of the screen. Select “Settings”. Tap on “Calendar”. Tap on the white box where it says “Google”. You can also link a calendar from Outlook or Office 365 if you use those services. Select “Link a Google Calendar Account”. Sign into your Google account by entering in your Google username or email followed by your password....

If you’ve just switched to Verizon FIOS and they’ve installed the new router in your house, there’s just one problem: it’s set to use lousy WEP encryption by default, instead of the much more secure WPA2. Here’s how to fix it. The problem with WEP encryption is that it can be cracked really easily—a skilled hacker can do it in a few minutes, and even an unskilled geek can do it in just a little more time with the right tools....

Use Internet Explorer 9? It may be sending your entire browsing history to Microsoft. Or, it may be automatically blocking tracking websites. It’s all in how you tweak Internet Explorer’s privacy settings. Internet Explorer’s tracking protection is a standout feature, but suggested sites, the SmartScreen filter and search suggestions can leak your private information. Tracking protection isn’t enabled by default, so you’ll have to enable it for maximum privacy protection....

Using the Settings app, you can sign out of any email account (including Gmail, Outlook, and iCloud), while still continuing to use the account for syncing notes, contacts, and so on. To do this, open the “Settings” app on your iPhone or iPad and go to the “Passwords & Accounts” section. Here, you’ll see all of the accounts that you are logged in to. Tap on an account to see its fine details....

Applications running in Kubernetes are normally long-lived services that you don’t need to interact with. Sometimes you might want to manually run a command inside a container though, perhaps for a one-off maintenance operation or to assist a debugging procedure. In this article we’ll show how to run commands and get interactive shell sessions inside Kubernetes containers. This will let you start processes in the container using your local terminal....

If you’re shocked by the costs your printer incurs—and who isn’t?—then this guide is for you. Learn how to slash printing costs by making some simple and free tweaks to your printing routine and print settings. Printing costs, especially if you have an inkjet printer, are astronomical. Today we’re taking a look at techniques you can use to minimize your printing costs. The majority of the techniques don’t cost you a dime and those that do will save you piles of cash in the long run....

Two-factor authentication is important, but a hassle. Instead of typing in a code from your phone, what if you could just insert a USB key to get access to your important accounts? That’s what U2F does—it’s an emerging standard for physical authentication tokens. Current U2F keys are small USB devices. To log in, you won’t need to enter an authentication code provided from an app or text message—just insert the USB security key and press a button....

Facebook killed their M chat bot a few months back because it was more artificially stupid than artificially intelligent. Unfortunately, it lives on as the equally unintelligent M Suggestions in Facebook Messenger. Here’s how to turn those off. What is Facebook M? Facebook M was a virtual assistant chat bot that actually used humans to do most things. Facebook’s plan was to use the humans to train the chat bot, and then phase out how much the humans had to do....

Devices such as the Chromecast with Google TV can display a Google Photos slideshow as the screen saver. If you’d like to use your TV as a giant photo frame, we’ll show you how to set this up. During the Chromecast’s initial setup process, you’ll be asked to choose an “Ambient Mode.” This is what Google TV devices call the screen saver. Google Photos is one of the options during setup, but if you didn’t select it then, you can do it now....

First, Install VLC Media Player on Fire TV On the Find page, navigate downward and select the “Search” card. Type “VLC” using the onscreen keyboard. Highlight “VLC Media Player” in the search results and press the center button to select it. On the “VLC for Fire” app page, select “Download” to begin downloading the app. After it installs, go back to the Fire TV home page. Navigate to the Apps and Channels tab on the right-hand side (It looks like three squares and a plus sign....

You probably got that Oculus Go, Oculus Rift, or HTC Vive to play games, but VR can also offer a seriously immersive video-watching experience. Here’s how to watch a movie on any VR headset, whether it’s a regular 2D movie, a 3D movie, or a full 360-degree VR production. We’ve got instructions on how to watch VR videos on Oculus Go, Rift, Vive, Daydream, or Gear VR — keep scrolling until you get to the section that applies to you....

To add the new PPA open the Ubuntu Software Center, go to the Edit Menu, and select Software Sources. Access the Other Software Tab in the Software Sources Window and add the first of the PPAs shown below (outlined in red). The second PPA will be automatically added to your system. Once you have the new PPAs set up, go back to the Ubuntu Software Center and click on the PPA listing for KeePass 2 on the left (highlighted with red in the image)....

When you are shopping for a new hard drive, it can sometimes be a bit confusing when similar, or not so similar terminology is all mixed together in the product’s description. With that in mind, today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question. 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....

What Makes The Cloud So Useful? In its most basic form, the “cloud” is just any Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider that allows you to rent hardware for running your applications on. Many companies run their networks from their own on-premises servers. Renting them from a third party allows greater flexibility and the option to scale as needed. For example, running your servers in the cloud can actually save you money. While dedicated servers will of course will be more expensive core-for-core (as everyone is going to mark up their products somewhat), providers like AWS have advanced auto-scaling systems....

You may have heard photographers talk about “Chromatic Aberration” like it’s a disease. Today, we’ll give a explanation of what this term means, and share an advanced technique for removing it from photos, should the need arise. A function of light conditions or using a lens incorrectly, chromatic aberration can ruin a photograph and reduce the amount of detail captured by the camera. While lenses and cameras are developed with technology to reduce these glitches, the simple fact of the matter is they still pop up under the right (or wrong?...