What is URL Shortening? URL Shortening is a process that translates long (and sometimes awkward) website addresses into short easy-to-manage URLs. These shortened URLs serve as a bridge to redirect you or people you share the URL with to the original website address. Here is an example of just how much difference there can be between a regular URL (with eighty five characters)… Versus a shortened URL for the same address (now only having eighteen to twenty characters)…...

Amie Street is a cool site that allows you to discover a lot of cool music from independent artists. What makes Amie Street unique is that most of the music starts out free, then the price goes up incrementally as its popularity grows. The Amie Street App for Boxee let’s you access music and playlists you’ve created on the site, with more features are on the way. For this example we’re using the mouse and keyboard, but of course you can also get to each section using your remote if you have one....

Tumblr’s default “Like” and “Reblog” options are an attempt to reinvent comments, but they only work well when all of your friends and readers are using Tumblr. Adding traditional comments to your Tumblr blog can broaden your site’s community and make it more fun and useful. Although Tumblr doesn’t include a standard commenting system, it does allow you to integrate the Disqus comment system, which can bring both comments and feedback from social networks to your blog in only a few steps....

The new AirPods Pro isn’t a radical redesign compared to the current model, which isn’t too surprising — the original is still a great pair of wireless earbuds. It has an updated H2 chip, which Apple says improves audio processing. Active Noise Cancellation is now twice as responsive, as the updated hardware can detect surrounding changes quicker — Apple used an example of construction equipment on a busy road as an example....

Like the iPhone SE, the Apple Watch SE exists as a “budget” entry-level option in the lineup. Still, it offers many of the same features found in the new Apple Watch Series 8. Crash detection, for example, is one of the new features. The watch will know if you’ve been in a car crash and inform selected people and services. The 2022 model has a 30 percent larger display than the Watch Series 3, Apple’s other less expensive option....

ASUS published a press release and YouTube video showcasing its new world record for CPU overclocking, which pushed the 13th gen Intel Core i9-13900K to an incredible 9.008 GHz — under normal conditions, that processor has a maximum boost clock of 5.8 GHz. The feat was achieved using ASUS’ own ROG Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard, an ROG Thor 1600W Titanium power supply, and “a healthy supply of liquid helium.”...

The process is relatively simple, but finding a Template that works with what the boss wants might be the hardest part. The good thing there are several available for almost any situation you need. Templates in Excel Open Excel and click the File tab to access backstage view then click on New to display the available templates. There are several categories from Office.com you can choose from. Browse through the large selection of categories and choose the one you need for your situation....

Just got started using BitTorrent and want it to download torrents faster? With some easy configuration, you can use your bandwidth to its utmost potential, even if you don’t have fat pipes at home. This is the fifth article in our series explaining BitTorrent—be sure and check out our beginner’s guide, how to create your own torrents, protecting your privacy, and how to privately share large files with your friends....

CloudFormation is a tool for automating the creation, updating, and management of your entire resource stack. It provides a way to turn your infrastructure into code, in the form of a YAML file, which can be version controlled alongside your software. What Is CloudFormation? CloudFormation’s concept is pretty simple—creating resources manually can be a pain, and while it can be automated using CLI or API requests, if you need to update your stack in the future, it’s still going to be a mostly manual process....

In performance-critical applications, every microsecond counts, and wasted time can quickly add up and become a bottleneck. We’ll discuss some general programming performance tips, as well as .NET specific best practices and optimizations. How to Time Your Code The most basic way to measure how long a function takes is using a StopWatch. This class can take very precise measurements of code when debugging, and can even be used programmatically for things like setting timeouts....

Download the Pazera Free Audio Extractor. (See download link below) You’ll need to unzip the download folder, but there is no need to install the application. Simply double-click the AudioExtractor.exe file to run the application. To add your video files to the queue to be converted, click on the Add files button at the top left. You can add multiple files to the queue and convert them all at one time....

The way Firefox Relay‘s phone number masking feature will work is similar to its email masking feature. The service will give you an alternative phone number that will mask your real phone number — one that you can use and hand to people online without putting your actual phone number out there. Calls and texts will be forwarded to your actual phone number, and you can even reply to texts from the masked number if you don’t want to expose your number....

CreaWriter in Action When you start CreaWriter for the first time you will see this background and hear a “running/trickling water” sound file. Definitely a nice start on a peaceful writing environment. Here is a closer look at the “Tools Sidebar”. If you hover your mouse over each button you will see a tooltip appear showing what that button does. For those who are curious we also have a list right here for you....

Microsoft has been making tablet/laptop hybrid Surface devices for quite a long time. And while they don’t really fit into any single product category, that’s formulated by design. The Surface lineup is all about versatility, and nearly a decade after the first version came to be, the Surface Pro X embraces this theme in the thinnest form factor yet. Weighing in at less than 2 pounds and 0.28 inches thick, it’s light and easy to hold, even for prolonged periods of time....

Continuous Integration and Deployment, or CI/CD, is the process of streamlining and accelerating development by automatically building and testing every commit to your project. GitLab integrates CI/CD into their git solution extremely well, and we’ll show how to set it up and work with it. Setting Up a Build Server (GitLab Runner) Often, compiling code can be an extremely intensive operation. Not all languages have this issue, but some, like C++, can take over half an hour to complete a complicated build....

Originally launched in 2017 as Project Honolulu, Windows Admin Center (WAC), or WAC as it became known, has gained lots of functionality and features to make managing your servers, clusters, and Windows 10 PCs that much easier. WAC is a browser-based application that is downloaded and locally deployed, so no server is needed to use this tool. In many ways, It’s a replacement for other in-box tools such as Server Manager and MMC....

Create a Virtual Drive This process creates virtual disks in the .VHD format where the minimum size is 3MB. To begin, Right-click on My Computer and select to Manage. Alternately you can type diskmgmt.msc into the Start search box and enter. The Computer Management screen opens click on Disk Management then Action and Create VHD. Browse to the directory you want the disk to reside, choose the size you want it to be, and select dynamic or a fixed....

The Humble Filename Everything stored on your computer’s hard drive needs to have a name. Without a name, no files would exist. All of the applications and daemons that are launched when your computer boots up, and all of the software that you use, has to be identified and stored in a file system. That identification is the name of the file.’ The same thing applies to the files that you create or install....

No audio in Flash videos. Audio stops entirely after opening a Flash video. No audio at all. Audio plays out of speakers but not headphones plugged into the front of the computer (go to step 5). Quick Ubuntu Audio Primer By default, Ubuntu 9.10 uses two complementary programs to pump sound through your speakers or headphones. ALSA The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) provides direct access to your sound card. One issue with ALSA is that only one program can output sound to ALSA at one time....

A Basic Install After booting up from your install disk, you will arrive at a language and preferences screen. Once you have chosen those options, you get to the Operating System Selection page. Depending on your license and the purpose of your server, there are a variety of options to choose from. For our purpose today, we are going to choose the Enterprise (Full Installation) version. We get to read the standard End User License Agreement....