Windows 7 includes the popular new themes feature that lets users quickly download and change themes, including desktop wallpaper, window border color, icons, sounds, and more. Ubuntu and all Linux distros are known for being more tweakable than other operating systems, but often it can be difficult and confusing for new users to get a new look and feel setup. With a couple terminal commands, however, you can add the new Bisigi themes to your Ubuntu desktop....

Web browsers have been pushing to replace insecure HTTP sites with HTTPS for years, but there are still plenty of insecure pages and links. Chrome is now starting to experiment with modifying page links to improve security. HTTPS adds a layer of encryption between your device (and web browser) and whatever site you are visiting, ensuring that no one can modify the contents along the way. Even though most websites support HTTPS to some extent, some of them don’t automatically redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS, or have links to other pages that were never updated to use HTTPS....

Create a Pivot Table First select any cell in the worksheet that contains the data you want to create the report on. Then under the Insert tab click on the PivotTable button. The PivotTable dialog box opens and the table or data range we already selected will show in that field. You can have it placed in a new worksheet or in the existing one where you will need to select the location....

In case you didn’t notice, have no idea what we’re talking about, or just want visual confirmation, here’s the system menu by default: Notice that the Applications menu has icons, as does the Places menu. Enable Icons on the Ubuntu System Menu Enabling the icons is a very simple matter—either open up a terminal window, or hit Alt+F2 to bring up the Run Application dialog, and then paste in the following command:...

Internal and External IP Addresses Internet Protocol addresses are used to identify devices on a network. They’re a unique label on the network, assigned to a single device. If another device wants to send data to that device, it can do so using its IP address. Your broadband modem has a network router built into it that directs the network traffic around the network from device to device. It’s also the local authority that allocates IP addresses to devices when they join the network....

If you’re unable to access a service running on your virtual private server, it’s likely because the firewall in front of it is blocking the ports you need. We’ll show you how to work with and open ports on a Google Cloud Platform firewall. How Do GCP Firewalls Work? Compared to other cloud providers, GCP’s firewall system works a little differently. In a regular firewall, like AWS’s security groups, you can manually edit and open ports for any instance that uses that security group....

Higher Order Components (HOCs) are a kind of React component which help you to reuse logic across your application. The terminology may sound complex but HOCs are easy to get grips with and can make your codebase simpler to maintain. A Higher Order Component always wraps child components with additional functionality. A HOC is defined as a function which accepts a component as a parameter. It then returns a new component, which will typically render the input component wrapped with extra props....

Many of us have tried many notetaking tools over the years, but once you’ve decided to stick to one you’ll want to move all of your notes into your main app. We tried to find ways to import your notes from Evernote into OneNote, but only came up with some workarounds and no good solutions. This week however, the developers of MobileNoter, an iOS OneNote app, released a new tool that makes it quick and simple import your Evernote notes into OneNote....

The Problem Special characters can often be annoying to use. There are many different ways to insert special characters, and many programs have specific ways to insert them. For example, in Microsoft Word you can insert a special character from the Symbol button on the Insert tab in the ribbon. Word also has specialized keyboard shortcuts for many of the common special characters. For example, you can insert the Registered Trademark symbol ® by pressing Alt+Ctrl+R....

As it turns out, IVPN can do a lot, and it’s definitely one of the best VPN services out there. It’s secure, easy to use, and it’s as fast as greased lightning. The only bad thing is that it can’t unblock streaming services. There are also some minor pricing issues I’ll get into as we go along. If you don’t care about streaming, though, IVPN might be one of the best VPNs on the market....

Note: Requires Adobe AIR (download link at bottom of article). Antenna in Action Once you have completed the installation and started Antenna up this is the window that you will see. The left side will have a “browsing pane” where you can search for the stations that you would like to listen to using the various categories. Based on the stations that you choose the background map will change location to match the stations locations....

Wp-comment-notifier is a small free app for Windows that lets you easily view, approve, reply to, and delete comments from your WordPress blog. Whether you have a free WordPress.com blog or are running WordPress on your own server, this tool can keep you connected to your comments. Unfortunately it only lets you manage comments at one blog, so if manage multiple WordPress-powered sites you may find this a downside. Otherwise, it works great and helps you stay on top of the conversation at your blog....

Knowing the Lingo Will Help You Plan One of the promises of Matter is that the smart home will become a more seamless and easy-to-set-up experience. The whole point of Matter is to bring smart home setup and management beyond the realm of hobbyists and home automation geeks—like yours truly—and make it easy enough for anybody to set up, even if they don’t want to be an amateur smart home engineer....

Note: of course, this technique won’t work for every scenario, but we’ve had to do this a few times this week and figured we’d share. Recently, we’ve been having problems with the dev channel of Google Chrome locking up, especially when viewing PDFs with the built-in PDF viewer. When this happens and we force quit Chrome, we get two error messages when we start it up again, noting that “Your profile could not be opened correctly....

Update configuration/INI files to replace UNC paths. Mass update user information stored in INI files on a Terminal/Citrix server. Use in conjunction with scripts to deploy ‘templated’ data and then apply values to the copied files. Our solution is a VBScript which interfaces with the Visual Basic Replace function. By placing this script into a location in your Windows PATH variable, you now have this functionality available at your disposal....

Editor Note: This technique was created by our friend Ramesh Srinivasan from the winhelponline tech blog. If you haven’t done so already, download and install Microsoft Security Essentials (link below), which has earned the How-To Geek official endorsement. Next download the mseautoplay.zip (link below). Unzip the file to view its contents. Then move the msescan.vbs script file into the Windows directory. Next double-click on the mseautoplay.reg file… Click Yes to the warning dialog window asking if you’re sure you want to add to the registry....

What’s a Watt Meter and Why Do I Need One? A watt meter is a device that allows you to measure the number of watts a given device pulls down from your home’s electrical system. While some things have power loads that are easy to calculate, very few things use the exact wattage written on the box or label—a point we emphasized strongly in our guide to measuring your energy use....

Managed database services can make it much easier to host and maintain a master database (instance or cluster) for your business deployment. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of using database-as-a-service features like AWS RDS. Benefits Of Managed Database Services Easy Administration First off, database-as-a-services are very easy to set up, often just requiring you to click which options you’d like, as well as which database type you’re going with, and how much compute you want to use....

Note: Acer GridVista works with Windows XP, Vista, & 7. It will also work with dual monitors. Setup Acer GridVista comes in a zip file format and at first you might assume that it is portable in nature but it is not. Once you unzip the enclosed folder you will need to double click on “Setup.exe” to install the program. Acer GridVista in Action Once you have installed the program and started it up all that you will notice at first is the new “System Tray Icon”....

When you find a new television show to dive into, it’s a beautiful thing. You’re both young and naïve, excited to see each other at the end of the day in a world filled with possibility. It sees you through promotions and moves and you both face challenges together, except theirs are resolved in 30 minutes to an hour. Then something changes. A character acts in a way they wouldn’t normally do, a new annoying one gets introduced, and a plot twist seems forced and trite....