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The exFAT file system is ideal for flash drives and SD cards. It’s like FAT32, but without the 4 GB file size limit. You can use exFAT drives on Linux with full read-write support, but you’ll need to install a few packages first. Try connecting an exFAT-formatted drive without installing the required software and you’ll often see “Unable to mount” error message saying “unknown file system type: ‘exfat’.” How to Install exFAT Support We performed this process on Ubuntu 14....

Can’t find a configuration option on your iPhone or iPad? Apple makes it easy to search within Settings to find what you need. It’s a feature so small that you may overlook it if you don’t know it’s there. Here’s how to use it. To find the search box, open the Settings app and swipe down on its main screen. You’ll see a search bar appear at the top of the screen....

Instead of looking for a “Record” option typically found from typical cable providers, YouTube TV records shows and movies you’ve added to your library. We’ll show you how to add your favorite shows and movies to your YouTube TV library. Record YouTube TV Shows and Movies on Mobile First, open the YouTube TV app on iPhone, iPad, or Android. Tap on the search icon in the top-right corner of the interface....

Playlists are a huge part of the Spotify experience. There are many premade playlists to choose from, but it’s more fun to make your own. What if you delete one of your playlists by mistake? It’s not gone forever. Spotify saves deleted playlists for 90 days, which is great news if you accidentally delete a playlist or simply change your mind. You can’t recover the deleted playlist from the Spotify apps, though....

On Windows 10, File Explorer shows visible checkboxes whenever you select a file. This makes file management easier with a touch screen, but you might prefer a classic experience without those checkboxes. Here’s how to turn them off. When enabled, Item checkboxes look like a small square—either empty or with a checkmark inside of them—beside each file’s icon, thumbnail, or file name. They appear in every File Explorer layout mode, including List and Detailed views....

How to Right-Click on a Trackpad The trackpad on a Macbook (or the Magic Trackpad) is a single piece of brushed aluminum. The newer MacBooks come with a Force Trackpad that emulates a click and provides haptic feedback (the previous generations would actually click). No matter which trackpad you’re using, right-clicking on a MacBook is simple. Just tap or click (press down) with two fingers simultaneously. If the two-finger tap doesn’t work for you, or if you want to change the action, you can adjust settings from System Preferences....

Windows 10 normally sends files you delete to the Recycle Bin. They’ll be kept until you empty it—or, in some cases, until Windows 10 automatically empties your Recycle Bin. Here’s how to skip the Recycle Bin and delete files immediately. This doesn’t necessarily “permanently delete” files. Your deleted files may still be recoverable, especially if you’re using a mechanical hard drive and not a solid-state drive. We recommend using encryption to protect all your files—with full-disk encryption, people can’t recover your deleted files without also bypassing the encryption...

Depending on your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you can often get faster speeds by calling them (or visiting their website) and upgrading to a more expensive plan. Your monthly bill will go up, but so will your speed. Before you do that, however, here are some tips that can speed up your connection for free. Optimize Your Wi-Fi and Local Network Many issues with local networks, particularly those using Wi-Fi, are to blame for poor Internet speeds....

There are two ways to use a Chromebook with an external display. The extra display can be a secondary screen independent of the Chromebook display, or you can mirror your Chromebook’s display. RELATED: How to Connect a Bluetooth Mouse to a Chromebook If you want to turn off the display on your Chromebook while connected to an external display, the latter is the method to use. After connecting your Chromebook to the display, open “Settings” from the app list....

A previous version of this article detailed the use of MotioninJoy to use your Sony PS3 controller as a joystick on your Windows PC. Unfortunately, MotioninJoy was a proprietary piece of software that turned into malware over the years. Luckily, you don’t have to infect your computer, as there is an open-source alternative in ScpToolkit. Don’t use MotioninJoy. How to Install ScpToolkit ScpToolkit has to modify some system drivers to make the controller work, so it’s not the safest install process....

Microsoft Word makes it easy to add the same text to multiple documents. This is especially handy for text with special formatting, the kind of text that often breaks when pasting it into a new document. The time you find yourself changing the same details in a dozen documents, try this instead. Open a new Microsoft Word document and enter the text you’re going to paste across multiple other documents....

Phishing attacks and other scams are ever-present, but over the past few weeks, fake shipping notices sent over text or email have been on the rise. Don’t fall for them. Fraud messages that mimic package shipping alerts are on the rise, possibly from groups hoping to capitalize on the increased number of package deliveries during the holiday season. The exact formatting varies, but most examples of the scam come from a text message about a delivery problem....

For example, suppose you’re looking for an affordable workhorse or a gaming laptop. In that case, you should prioritize internal hardware specs while being ready to make trade-offs regarding battery life or the screen’s color saturation. On the other hand, if you need a portable and compact device for carrying around and doing everyday tasks, powerful innards aren’t as crucial as a lightweight design, excellent battery life, and good build quality....

RELATED: The 10 Best Movies on Netflix in 2023 His House Play Video different kind of ghost story, His House begins from a perspective not often represented in horror movies. A refugee couple from South Sudan arrives in the U.K. and is placed in temporary housing, where they experience strange apparitions and noises. The typical haunted house material leads into a story about survivor’s guilt and the legacy of war, highlighting injustice and inequality while remaining creepy and intense....

Your Portable Internet Connection A mobile hotspot, also known as a portable hotspot or a personal hotspot, is a wireless access point typically created by a dedicated piece of hardware or software on your smartphone. Whereas your home network’s connection comes from your ISP, a hotspot shares internet access with nearby devices using its own cellular data connection. Mobile hotspots generally take a 3G, 4G, or 5G connection and convert it into a Wi-Fi signal for other devices....

The Smart Hub At the heart of any Vivint smart home security system is a Smart Hub—a touch-screen panel that needs to be hard-wired to a power source. The Smart Hub acts as the central “brain” of the system and is the device to which all other sensors and monitors connect. The Smart Hub also lets you monitor any cameras that you have installed directly from the screen, and it’s the device that will contact your monitoring service (more about that in a minute) should it detect an issue....

Google relaunched Google Pay in late 2020, and with it came a bunch of new features. Not only can the app be used to make payments on the go, but it can now be your personal banking solution. Google Pay can be as powerful or as simple as you like depending on what you want to use. Let’s dive in. Mobile Payments Before its relaunch, Google Pay was primarily used for mobile payments....

You don’t need an antivirus for your iPhone or iPad. In fact, any “antivirus” apps you see advertised for iPhones aren’t even antivirus software. They’re just “security” programs that can’t actually protect you from malware. There Are No Real Antivirus Apps for iPhone A traditional antivirus application for Windows or macOS has full access to your operating system and uses that access to scan your applications and files to ensure no malware is running....

A Compact, Portable Version of Windows Windows CE was necessary because full desktop versions of Windows, then tied mostly to the Intel x86 CPU architecture, weren’t practical to run on the pocket-sized devices of the time. As a result, Windows CE represented an entirely different platform from its desktop OS cousins. It couldn’t run programs designed for Windows 95 or Windows NT. Windows CE’s design emphasized low power usage, compatibility with flash memory storage, and relatively low memory requirements....

So, why keep it? And not just keep it, but also spend huge sums to maintain and preserve it? Because it’s an important part of the history of modern computing. Like the other geriatric computers crowding the shelves of my office, its design tells a story—and it’s one worth preserving. Why Do People Collect Classic Computers? When you tell people you like to refurbish and restore old computers, the first word to pass their lips is “why?...