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One of the more overlooked tools in Windows is Perfmon, otherwise known as performance monitor. This utility has many overlooked abilities, one of them being the ability to alert on various metric conditions. In this article, we explore how to properly use the alerting ability of Perfmon with a high CPU usage. What is Perfmon? Available since the early days of Windows in various iterations, Performance Monitor is available as an MMC snap-in to Windows intended to assist in monitoring system usage and various performance metrics....

Rate limiting controls how many requests users can make to your site. This is usually put in place to stop abusive bots, limit login attempts, and control API usage, which can prevent your server from slowing down under load. Rate limiting can’t always save you from massive traffic spikes, so if your server really needs protection it’s good practice to set up a full-site CDN in front, or at least set up HAProxy load balancing to split the load across multiple servers....

Why wouldn’t you want a widget, you ask? All widgets require extra CPU cycles and chew into your memory, and it’s probably a good idea to cut down on your widgets if you want to maximize your Android phone’s battery life. View the Battery Level without a Widget To check the battery levels with the built-in software, all you need to do is open the Settings application, and then browse down to About phone –> Status....

We picture fully automated kitchens in which eggs ride a little conveyor belt to a frying pan and fruit is sucked into a vacuum juicer, and we adjust the brightness of the morning sun via remote control. That’s what we picture, then we look around our current kitchen at the overcooked eggs with shells in them, the dilapidated refrigerator making loud creepy noises that scare the dog, and a team of ants walking away with an undercooked slice of bacon....

Breaches, Fines, and Damages Breaches of personally identifiable information (PII) or the inappropriate use of PII can result in large fines. In Europe, the first wave of significant fines under the General Data Protection Protection act has crashed upon the unlucky businesses. H&M (Hennes & Mauritz Online Shop) has been fined the equivalent of USD 41 million. And, GDPR doesn’t just apply to European businesses. If you employ Europeans or trade or operate in Europe—and if you have a website accessible from Europe and there’s an email address on it that people can use to contact you, that counts as trading—the GDPR applies to you, too....

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 5 is, all-in-all, mostly a spec upgrade from its predecessor, the Surface Laptop 4. Here, we have Intel’s 12th gen CPU lineup — more specifically, a choice between a Core i5-1235U and a Core i7-1255U. Notably, it’s the first Surface Laptop to be certified as an Intel Evo device, meaning that it meets and exceeds Intel’s strict requirements and that you can expect a smooth experience with great battery life....

Monitoring News Regator monitors news based on certain ‘Keywords’. We can ask Regator to monitor as many keywords as possible. We can filter news in Regator based on content type, date, topic, and new source. This feature is very helpful when we want to view only the latest update for certain news, or filtering the news type based on in its topic or content type. Collecting News Regator lets you save news for you to read later under a its ‘Favorite Posts’ tab....

Accessing EAVE There are two methods for accessing EAVE after installing the extension. The default is the “Status Bar Icon” and the second method is using the “Toolbar Icon”. Note: If you choose to use the “Toolbar Icon” you will need to select for it in the “Options”. EAVE in Action There are four things to keep in mind about EAVE: You can manually check for updates as often as desired The auto-check feature for detecting updates is set at a default of 7 days but can be easily changed If a new version of an experimental add-on is detected you will see a slider alert with a clickable link for that add-on’s AMO page If an add-on you are monitoring graduates from the experimental stage you will be notified and that add-on is automatically removed from the tracking list...

If you don’t feel like building a PC, MSI has a range of new pre-built PCs equipped with the latest hardware for you, joining the party with Dell’s Alienware. The MEG Trident X2 comes with a peculiar, airflow-first design with a front 4.5-inch touch panel on the case for more intuitive controls. If you’d rather have a more simple, yet still eye-catching design, the MPG Infinite X2 has a more conventional-looking case that still has a lot of space for airflow....

NASA, the primary space agency of the United States, and SpaceX, a space launch provider, have announced a new partnership to study the feasibility of boosting the Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit using the Dragon spacecraft from SpaceX. Hubble has been visited by spacecraft five times already for repairs and servicing, but each previous mission was carried out by astronauts on the Space Shuttle, which is no longer available....

NASA snapped a shot of the sun on Wednesday, in which the giant ball of hot plasma seemed to be sporting a smile—hopefully for good reasons, and not because it’s about to explode. It appeared to feature two gashes for eyes, a round pug nose, and a flaming smile down below. “Say cheese!” NASA began its Tweet. “Today, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the Sun “smiling.” The happy sun resembled a pumpkin on fire or what a person might look like if they were still somehow smiling while drowning in lava....

Outlook 2007 Open up Outlook and in the Navigation Pane right-click Calendar and select Open in New Window. Now you can do this for any feature you want to have open in a new window. For example here we have Calendar, Contacts, and Mail each open in their own separate window. Now if you’re using Windows 7 you can easily switch between windows with the new Taskbar. Or you can use the “Alt+Tab” key combination if you prefer especially in earlier versions....

Our monitor only gives us a limited space to edit Word documents. Jumping from one page to another consumes too much time, so today we will show you some simple tips to maximize the Microsoft Word editing area for a better writing experience. Split The Editor Open the view tab to access the ‘Split Window’ icon and position the split bar just below the part that we want to keep static....

If you’re using Mac OS X, you can quickly preview your pictures and more by selecting them in the Finder and pressing the space bar. It quickly lets you see your picture in a larger size, and zooms in and out when you open and close the preview. A similar Lightbox effect is popular on many websites; click a picture, and the page will fade while the image zoom out larger....

Plug the Zune into your computer and launch the Zune Player. Then click on the Zune icon on the lower left corner of the screen. In the next screen click on Settings. Now in Device Settings click the Erase all content button under Player Options. Click Yes to the confirmation message. Now wait while all of the music, photos, apps, videos…etc are erased. After it’s complete you’ll be returned to the device screen and you’ll see there is no content on the player....

andLinux is actually a full installation of Ubuntu that allows you to run Linux apps directly within the Windows environment. The user interface is the KDE flavor, which should be easier for Windows users to get used to. It’s completely free, easy to install, and is a great way for the Windows user to introduce themselves to Linux. Note: andLinux is in Beta 2 stage, so keep in mind there may be some bugs yet to be worked out....

It’s invitation only during the beta period, but we’ve got 1000 invites for our How-to Geek readers! But first, let’s look at what it offers, and then you can go try it out for yourself. Boomerang is a browser plugin that adds a new button to Gmail. It lets you schedule emails in your inbox to show back up at a certain time, and also lets you schedule emails to be sent at another time....

Before The default new tab page in Chrome is useful but it would be nice to change or access some different features in it. Perhaps you would like a way to quickly access your “Google Tasks List” instead while browsing. New Tab to Tasks in Action As soon as you open a new tab your “Google Tasks List” is ready to go. If you happen to be having one of those extra busy days at work then every new tab will be a helpful reminder to keep you focused and on target....

Kindle E-Readers Tablets Streaming Media Players Echo, Bluetooth Speakers, and Headphones Home Security Devices Wireless Routers Phones (Apple, Google, Samsung, LG, and Motorola) Gaming (Consoles, Games, and Accessories) Of course, the trade-in and payment process can be significantly impacted by factors such as shipping times. If time is of the essence for you, it might be best to consider finding a physical trade-in location to bring your device to....

Ever wanted to customize your Windows 7 logon screen? Here’s a simple utility that can do that, and it also has a bunch of other tweaks built in. Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the files, you’ll just need to open the utility—from there, you can click the Browse button to select a wallpaper image, and then the Set button to assign it as the logon screen. Behind the Tools button you’ll find a bunch of other tweaks, though we haven’t tested them all, so we can’t verify how well they work—the wallpaper assignment works pretty well, from what we’ve tested....