A New MagSafe If you’re scratching your head thinking you’ve heard “MagSafe” before, you’re right. Apple previously used the name for its MacBook chargers prior to switching to USB-C. Back then, MagSafe wasn’t a wireless technology. It was designed to easily snap on and off, allowing you to easily connect a charger to your MacBook even in the dark. The upshot of having the charger secured by a magnet meant that accidents were much less likely to result in a broken laptop....

If you’ve ever browsed through Task Manager, you may have wondered why there are so many Service Host processes running. You can’t kill them, and you sure didn’t start them. So, what are they? This article is part of our ongoing series explaining various processes found in Task Manager, like dwm.exe, ctfmon.exe, mDNSResponder.exe, conhost.exe, rundll32.exe, Adobe_Updater.exe, and many others. Don’t know what those services are? Better start reading! What Is the Service Host Process?...

There was a time long ago when 3G was the high mark in mobile data. There was even an iPhone named after it! Nowadays, 5G is the big deal, and 3G is being turned off. When exactly will that happen? Why Carriers Are Saying Goodbye to 3G 4G LTE eventually came along and replaced 3G in 2009, and it’s still widely used as 5G slowly becomes available in more places....

Make Your Phone Your Own As personal as smartphones have become, it’s rare that I see someone with a truly unique-looking device. It’s common to see laptops and water bottles covered in stickers, but then a boring black phone in a plain case next to it. Why don’t we give the same attention to these devices that are always with us? Let’s dive into some of the options you have when it comes to customizing the outside of your phone....

What Exactly Is a Hacker? Hacker is a word that has been repurposed and its original meaning almost completely erased. It used to mean a gifted, driven programmer. The stereotypical hacker was practically obsessed with programming, often to the exclusion of any kind of regular social life. Instead, they’d pursue low-level knowledge of the inner workings of computers, networks, and—above all else—the software that controlled it all. Apart from the lack of social interaction, hacking wasn’t considered a bad thing, per se....

As it turns out, the issue was caused by the network Facebook has built to connect all of its computing facilities together. In a lengthy blog post, Facebook’s Santosh Janardhan said that everything broke during a routine maintenance job. “During one of these routine maintenance jobs, a command was issued with the intention to assess the availability of global backbone capacity, which unintentionally took down all the connections in our backbone network, effectively disconnecting Facebook data centers globally,” the post said....

Chrome OS already has basic window snapping, where you can drag a window to the left or right sides of your screen to ‘snap’ the window into taking up half of the screen. Then you can drag another window to the other side, and instantly have a split-screen layout. Google is now working on a ‘Partial Split’ mode, which seemingly divides the window snapping layouts into thirds — meaning one window can take up one-third of the screen, while another app can use the remaining two-thirds of the screen....

Are Handheld Emulators Legal? The act of emulating a system is perfectly legal, which means building a handheld device or writing software that emulates a console is legal. Downloading ROMs you do not own, however, is certainly illegal. Just like downloading a movie or book that you don’t own, downloading a ROM is considered a copyright violation. Sharing ROMs with others who do not own them is also a violation of copyright law, and something the record and movie industries have taken a strong stance against since the early days of the internet....

Your Mac is acting funny, and you’ve tried everything: restarting your computer, resetting the NVRAM, and all the tricks that speed up a slow Mac. You even ran 50+ diagnostics at once to see what’s going on, and yet you find nothing. What’s the next step? You could try resetting the SMC, or System Management Controller, as a last resort. The SMC manages low level settings, like thermal and battery management....

The True Tesla Battery Replacement Cost Battery replacement is probably the most costly repair an electric car driver can incur. Teslas are especially notorious for their high repair costs, including how much it takes to swap out a new battery if something should go wrong. That said, it’s worth noting that most EV drivers won’t need to replace their car’s battery pack. Many EV manufacturers, Tesla included, back their batteries with an 8-10 year or 100,000-mile warranty....

Add Birthdays to Google Contacts The birthdays that you see in Google Calendar are for your Google Contacts. So to begin, make sure that the contacts you want to show up on your calendar are in your Google Contacts with birthdays. Head to Google Contacts and add a new contact by clicking “Create Contact” at the top left. To edit an existing contact, click the pencil icon to the right of their name in the list....

The days of needing a dedicated GPS unit for navigation are long gone. Thanks to Google Maps, all you need is a smartphone to get turn-by-turn directions. With home screen shortcuts on Android, it gets even easier to use. Typically, the process for getting directions involves opening the Google Maps app, searching for a location, finding the one you want, and starting navigation. If you’re doing this every day, it can become a bit cumbersome....

To delete your files for good, you have to manually empty the Recycle Bin on your PC. If you find that task tedious, you can automate the process of clearing the Recycle Bin. We’ll show you how to do that in Windows 11. Empty the Recycle Bin on a Schedule in Windows 11 To automatically delete the files in Recycle Bin, use Windows’ Storage Sense feature. This feature helps clear various files on your PC, including downloaded and deleted files....

Instagram accounts are a popular target for hackers. I know firsthand, because someone pretended to be me to try and steal some accounts. Fortunately they didn’t succeed, but if you have a weak password, you might not be so lucky. Let’s look at how to change your Instagram password to something a little more secure. RELATED: Your Passwords Are Terrible, and It’s Time to Do Something About It Open the Instagram app and go to your profile page....

All web browsers remember a list of the web pages you’ve visited. You can delete this list at any time, clearing your browsing history and erasing the tracks stored on your computer, smartphone, or tablet. Each browser has its own separate history, so you’ll need to clear the history in multiple places if you’ve used more than one browser. RELATED: How to Enable Private Browsing on Any Web Browser...

Unlike iPhones, Android allows apps to send notifications to your device without permission. It’s up to you to opt out or customize which notifications you get. We’ll show you how to do that. What Are Android Notification Channels? Android apps organize their notifications into “channels.” A social media app might have a channel for “likes” and a separate channel for comments. This relies on developers to implement, so some apps do it better than others....

Deleting emails is just one of many steps for basic inbox hygiene, but with that comes the occasional accidental deletion of an important email. We’re here to show you how to both delete emails and, with some luck, recover them in Gmail. How to Delete Emails in Gmail Deleting emails isn’t necessarily a difficult task, but with a large enough inbox, it can certainly be a cumbersome one. Even still, it must be done....

Because of the sheer number of Android phones out there, it can be a challenge to figure out (or remember) which handset you have. Here’s how you can find out. Look For the Model On the Phone Itself The first thing you should try is looking on the phone itself to see if the model number is printed there, so start by flipping your phone over. If you’re running a Samsung or LG handset, there’s a good chance the model is listed right there on the back....

Is it an App or Device Crash? First, you have to figure out whether it’s an app crash or a device crash. This is pretty simple: if you’re using an app, and it suddenly closes for no reason, the app crashed. If you’re using an app and it becomes unresponsive, but you can still access other apps, the app has crashed. If you’re trying to launch an app and it keeps disappearing, the app is repeatedly crashing....

When you work with shapes and objects in Microsoft Word, one of the most convenient features is Grouping. By grouping these types of elements together, they become one. This makes moving, resizing, and formatting them easier. How to Group Objects in Word Maybe you’re making a flowchart or creating instructions using arrows in Word. You can group them to control them at the same time. Select all of the shapes or objects that you want to group....