Always Read the Fine Print Before we get into why airlines limit battery sizes and how many you can bring, it’s important to point out that not all airlines are the same. You’re responsible for checking the battery policy of the specific airline you plan to fly with and contacting them for clarity before showing up to your flight with a bunch of batteries you’ll have to leave behind. Regulations will differ between airlines, aviation regulators, and different countries....

Uber has announced the launch of an ad platform that brands and potential advertisers can use to reach consumers through the Uber and Uber Eats apps. On your Uber rides, you’ll see “Journey Ads,” which are ad units that are supposed to catch your attention during trips. And on Uber Eats, you’ll see other ad models such as sponsored listings and homepage billboards, letting you place your business more prominently and reach more users....

Power Banks A power bank is a device that stores electricity in a large battery (usually lithium) and then charges your devices through USB when you need it. Some power banks offer power output through connections other than USB, but for the most part, USB is what you’ll get. We recommend buying the largest power bank you can afford for a blackout emergency kit. Airlines generally have a 100Wh limit on batteries you can take on a plane, but since that’s not relevant here, you can happily exceed that....

Import Firefox Bookmarks For this we’re using Firefox 3.6.10 and IE 9 Beta 64-bit. First we’ll take a look at importing your Firefox bookmarks to IE 9 Beta. First open Firefox and and the Toolbar go to Bookmarks \ Organize Bookmarks. Expand Import and Backup and select Export HTML. Then export your Firefox bookmark collection to a convenient location on your hard drive. Next open IE 9 Beta and hit Alt+T to bring up the Toolbar....

Both devices have twice the storage, at 16GB instead of 8GB, meaning you can download and read a lot more books offline. 16GB isn’t a lot for a smartphone, but for an ebook reader, it’s plenty. It also has a 300 PPI display that provides amazing quality for your book’s text and graphics. The display also offers an adjustable front light and even a dark mode for nighttime reading....

The short answer is that the jury’s still out, but probably not. Though dVPNs aren’t unsafe, either, for now the smart money seems to be on VPNs when it comes to protecting data. To figure out why that is, let’s start with a quick crash course on VPN security. How Regular VPNs Protect Your Data When you use a VPN, you make a connection from your computer to a server run by your internet service provider (ISP)....

Why a Gas Generator Is a Problem for Electronics A gas-powered generator makes AC (Alternating Current) power using an internal combustion engine and a device known as an alternator. An alternator is essentially an electric motor in reverse. The engine in the generator spins a magnet that induces an alternating electric current, which you can tap from the generator’s outlet. This is exactly how mains electricity is generated, except the power for those massive alternators comes from steam, most likely generated by coal, nuclear fission, natural gas, or diesel fuel....

Ubuntu’s default install only includes a couple languages, but it makes it easy to find and add a new interface language to your computer. To get started, open the System menu, select Administration, and then click Language Support. Ubuntu may ask if you want to update or add components to your current default language when you first open the dialog. Click Install to go ahead and install the additional components, or you can click Remind Me Later to wait as these will be installed automatically when you add a new language....

Note: There is a paid version of this program available but we used the free version for our article. Google Chrome Backup in Action During the installation process you will run across this particular window. It will have a default user name filled in as shown here…you will not need to do anything except click on Next to continue installing the program. When you start the program for the first time this is what you will see....

Windows 7’s redesigned taskbar makes it easier than ever to organize and run your favorite programs without having to constantly search for them in the Start menu. When you right-click apps on your Windows 7 taskbar, you’ll see a new jumplist that lets you open recent documents or start a common task in the app. Unfortunately, many apps don’t include full-featured jumplists, so you can’t really do anything interesting without running the program directly....

Cryptocurrency has been heralded by some as the future of digital payments, without the overhead of a central bank or government. However, at least some overhead might be needed, if the past few weeks have been any indication. The current chain of events started with the collapse of FTX, a company that operated one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world — it had a partnership with GameStop and an advertisement during the last Super Bowl....

According to a survey from 2005, employee interviews revealed that time wasted on email caused an enterprise with 10,000 employees to lose an estimated $152 million in wages per year. Email clearly has its downsides. Unclear emails distract employees from important work-related tasks, cloud communication channels, and often create extra work. Avoid the pitfalls of email by following the suggestions below. How Incoming Email Can Waste Your Time There are many types of email messages that can waste your time....

Before Here is our Opera Browser with four tabs full of HTG Network goodness… Hovering the mouse over the Taskbar Icon gives a nice preview of each tabs content. Looking closer you can see the fanned edge on the Taskbar Icon indicating that there are multiple tabs open. This is all good but what if you just want something simpler? Disabling the Previews If you want to disable the Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Opera you will need to type opera:config in the Address Bar and press Enter....

Microsoft Broadcaster is a new service from Microsoft to help publishers, bloggers, developers, and other IT professionals find relevant information and resources from Microsoft. You can use it to help discover things to write about, or simply discover new information about the technology you use. Broadcaster will also notify you when new resources are available about the topics that interest you. Let’s look at how you could use this to expand your blog and help your users....

Google Chrome’s new tablet experience wants to bring the browser a few steps closer to the experience you get on desktop, with the addition of several new features — while other additions seek to keep and improve some of its mobile aspects. For one, the new version implements a new side-by-side design to make it easier to find the proper tab. returning to your prior tab using auto-scroll back. It’ll also hide the close button when tabs grow too small, and if you do close one on accident, one-step restore can recover it for you....

Install Simple Backup To install SBackup open your menu and click on the software center. Search for SBackup and install the software from the search results. Note: These screenshots are taken from Linux Mint 9 but the steps will work on Ubuntu and most Ubuntu based distros. Configure SBackup SBackup’s recommended settings assumes you have /var/backup pointing to a separate hard drive. That is usually not the case on personal laptops and desktops so it would probably be a better idea to select custom backup settings and change the settings as you need....

If you have a home server powered by Linux, you’ll probably be upgrading your OS every so often. Here are some important files to back up and some alternative utilities that will help you get up and running quickly. Of course, every home server is going to be a little different, and you should adjust these recommendations accordingly—it’s just a general guide to help you understand where to start....

Disabling Plugins in Google Chrome If you head to about:plugins in your address bar, you’ll probably see a list of plugins, but won’t be able to disable them yet. What you’ll need to do is switch over to the Dev (Update: Or Beta) channel of Chrome, which gives you access to all the latest features—though you might be warned that sometimes the dev and beta channels might be less stable than the release channe....

Every time Ubuntu updates or you install some software, the package manager downloads all of the packages to the system, and then caches them there in case they need to be installed again. Unfortunately, this can often mean a real lot of wasted space. Check the Drive Space Used by Cached Files To check out the used space for yourself, head into the /var/cache/apt/archives folder, or just run the following command from the prompt:...

phpMyAdmin is a great tool for managing a MySQL database, but putting access to your database behind a web interface is an major security problem. Here are a few ways to mitigate the risks involved with runing phpMyAdmin. Why Is phpMyAdmin a Security Problem? Usually, you’d have a database that would run on your server and only accept connections from localhost or maybe from another trusted server. If you had an application also running on that server, it would communicate directly....