Exciting tips

Nordic is an interesting dark GTK theme for Linux. The color scheme for Nordic is very blue/dark gray, with a light green accent. Perfect for those looking for a nice, stylish dark GTK theme for the desktop. In this guide, we’ll go over how to install it.

Install Git on Linux

The Nordic GTK theme is available on GitHub, and the code is open and viewable. To get this theme set up and working, you must first install the Git package on your Linux PC. To do that, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, when the terminal is open, follow the command line instructions below.

Ubuntu

sudo apt install git

Debian

sudo apt-get install git

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S git

Fedora

sudo dnf install git

OpenSUSE

sudo zypper install git

Generic Linux

If you need to install the Git application on a lesser-known Linux operating system, head over to Pkgs.org to get your copy of the program. Alternatively, download the source code here to get it working.

Download Nordic GTK theme

To download the Nordic GTK theme on your Linux PC, open up a terminal window with Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, use the git clone command down below.

git clone https://github.com/EliverLara/Nordic.git

After running the git clone command, a folder with the name “Nordic” in your home directory (~).  To confirm that all of the files for this theme is in the “Nordic” directory, run the following ls command in terminal.

ls Nordic

Assuming all of the files are in the “Nordic” directory, move on to the installation instructions in the next section. Otherwise, delete the folder and re-run the git clone command to get the theme.

Install Nordic GTK theme

On Linux, GTK themes can be installed in multiple ways. The first way is “single-user,” which means that only the current user has access to the theme in their home directory. The second method of installation is “system-wide,” which gives every single user on the system the ability to use the theme. In this guide, we will demonstrate both ways of installing Nordic.

Single-user

To install the Nordic GTK theme on your Linux PC, you must start by creating a new folder with the name of “.themes” in your home directory (~). To create this new folder, use the mkdir command.

mkdir -p ~/.themes

Verify that the new “.themes” folder is in the home directory by running the ls -a command in a terminal window.

ls -a

Once you’ve verified that the folder is in the home directory on your system, use the mv command to place the “Nordic” theme files into the “.themes” folder.

mv ~/Nordic ~/.themes/

Once the installation is complete, you can verify that the Nordic theme has indeed been installed by running the ls command on the “.themes” directory.

ls ~/.themes | grep Nordic

Assuming the installation process of Nordic in the “.themes” folder is a success, the command above will display “Nordic” in the results, and confirm that it is indeed installed. If nothing comes up, please repeat the installation process, as an error may have occurred.

System-wide

Installing the Nordic GTK theme system-wide means directly interacting with the “themes” folder in your Linux PC’s system directory. It is not possible to access this folder without high-level, root access. So, before we get started, use the sudo -s command to change the terminal over to Root.

sudo -s

After elevating your terminal window to Root access, it is time to install the Nordic GTK theme to your Linux PC. Using the mv command, place the “Nordic” directory into “/usr/share/themes/”.

mv Nordic/ /usr/share/themes/

Once the Nordic directory is placed into the “themes” folder, you can verify it by using the ls command combined with the grep pipe.

ls /usr/share/themes/ | grep Nordic

Assuming the files are correctly installed, the command above will output “Nordic” and show that it is correctly installed. If it is not, you may need to re-do the installation, as something has gone wrong.

Enable Nordic GTK theme on Linux

Now that the Nordic GTK theme is installed on your Linux PC, it is time to enable it as the default look for the desktop. To do this, open up the “Settings” application and make your way to the “Appearance” section. From there, apply “Nordic” as your default GTK theme.

Having issues setting the Nordic GTK theme as the default desktop environment on your Linux PC? We can help! Look through this list below, choose the Linux desktop you use, and follow along to learn how to change GTK themes on Linux!

File Explorer almost had a tabbed interface. Almost. It was a feature that lots of users were looking forward to but it never made it out of the beta versions of Windows 10. File Explorer can run multiple instances but it does so by opening a new window. When you double-click a folder to open it, the default File Explorer behavior is to open it in the same window. If you’d like to open folders in a new File Explorer window, there are two things you can do.

Accidentally closing a File Explorer window when you need to keep it open? There’s a way to prevent it.

Open folder in new File Explorer window

This method works on the fly. You can pick and choose which folder will open in a new window. All you have to do is hold down the Shift key when you double click a folder. Doing so will open it in a new File Explorer window, much like a link would open in a new browser window in most modern web browsers. It’s an easy enough key to remember if you correlate it with a browser’s behavior. You can also access this option by holding down the Shift key and right-clicking a folder.

Change default File Explorer behavior

If you’d like any and all folders that you open to always open in a new File Explorer window, you can modify its default behavior. Open File Explorer and go to the View tab. Click the Options button at the very right. Click the ‘Change folder and search options’ option. In the Folder Options window that opens, go to the General tab. Under the Browse folders section, select the ‘Open each folder in its own window’ option. That will do the trick. Now, you no longer need to hold down the Shift button. Instead, you can double-click any folder and it will open in a new File Explorer window.

If you decide to change the default behavior, you should do so with a little caution. You might end up opening one too many File Explorer windows and it will eventually drag your system down.

The Shift key is the way to go since it affords flexibility. You can open a folder in a new window when you need to, or open it in the same window. The option will always be there. If you change the default behavior, one of these options goes away.

Tabs as a feature for File Explorer have been shelved indefinitely. There is no telling if Microsoft will ever pick up the idea again.

Monitors are plug and play. They’re some of the easiest hardware to set up and you’ll find they’re easy to connect to almost any laptop model that’s not a Macbook. The only thing you’ll be concerned with is the color profile that a monitor supports, its resolution, and the screen size. All of those you can check before you actually buy a monitor and it’s smooth sailing from there. If you’ve been using a monitor for a while and are suddenly seeing lines on the screen, you likely have a hardware problem. If you’re lucky, the problem won’t cost too much to fix.

Using a 4K monitor? Make sure you have it set up correctly.

HDMI/VGA/DVI Cable

The first thing you should check when you start seeing lines on a monitor screen is the cable that you use to connect to it. Examine it closely to see if it’s damaged. You might see pins that have broken or pins that are bent out of place. In some cases, it might be obvious that the cable is damaged. In other cases, it won’t be. It’s probably a good idea to just change the cable out with a new one. They’re cheap and easily available.

Additionally, make sure the cable isn’t unnecessarily coiled or wrapped up too tight. These cables are stiff to say the least and for good reason. If you coil it too much, it might cause damage inside the cable.

Power cable

Check the power cable for the monitor. Make sure it’s connected properly. If you’re using an extension board, make sure that the plug is connected securely. Electronic fluctuations may cause lines on the screen to appear. If you let it go on too long, it might damage your monitor. Change the cable. Again, it’s cheap so it won’t put you out too much.

Connecting ports

This is the next thing you should check once you’ve checked both the connecting and power cables. The port on your laptop/desktop and the monitor might both have come loose. Unfortunately, this isn’t something you can tell easily but check if the cable if fitting securely. Ideally, any cable connected to a port shouldn’t ‘jiggle’ around. If you’re not sure, you can have the hardware taken in and checked out by a professional.

Update display drivers

In some cases, this might be a software issue. Check if the display driver has recently been updated. It may cause problems but it is highly unlikely that it does. Still, given this is Windows 10, the chance is always there.

Overclocked GPU

If you’ve overclocked your GPU, it might be having trouble sending signals to the monitor. It may have worked fine for a while but problems can surface at any point. There’s not much you can do unless you’re willing to return the GPU to its stock settings.

A line across the screen

This is not for regular LCD or LED monitors. A long, long time ago, monitors used to be big square boxes that looked like television sets. They’re no longer manufactured but those that are still around and in use are sturdy enough to last another few decades. These monitors used a technology called CRT or cathode ray tube which is a fancy name for a picture tube. When this tube reaches the end of its life, a white line shows across the screen. If you happen to have one of these monitors and you’re seeing this single white line, unplug your monitor. It’s time for an upgrade.

If all else fails, you should take your monitor in for a check-up.

macOS has the best screenshot and screencast support of any mainstream desktop OS. It’s hard not to compare it to Windows 10 since it’s the only other desktop OS that’s close in number of users. Windows 10 is the first version of the OS to have a screenshot feature and it’s just a simple full-screen screenshot. macOS can capture the entire screen, a portion of the screen, a window, and it can record a screencast which Windows 10 cannot do so out of the box. It’s really great though the keyboard shortcuts are a bit complicated. You learn them quickly enough but they may not be easy to press. If that’s the case, you can change the screenshot keyboard shortcut on macOS.

Change screenshot keyboard shortcut

Open the System Preferences app and go to the Keyboard preference.

Go to the Shortcuts tab. The column on the left will have a ‘Screenshots’ option. Select it and in the pane on the right will list the various screenshot keyboard shortcuts that macOS has. The full-screen keyboard shortcut and the select area keyboard shortcut are listed here, along with the screen recording shortcut. If you have a Macbook with a touch bar, you may also see an option for the touch bar’s screenshot shortcut.

Click inside the shortcut and enter whatever you’d like to use in its place. Any time you want to go back to the default keyboard shortcuts, you can click the ‘Restore Defaults’ button.

The one keyboard shortcut that’s missing in this preference pane is the one for capturing the active window. This screenshot option is activated by first tapping the Shift+Command+4 and then tapping the spacebar. It’s likely that if you change the shortcut for an area-specific screenshot, you will also change it for the active window type screenshot. You want to try it out first before you commit to it. It also goes without saying that once the shortcuts have been freed up, you can use them for something else. Make sure the new shortcuts you set do not conflict with anything else. macOS may not be able to tell you if a shortcut is going to conflict with another app so it’s up to you to make sure you use the right keyboard key combination.

You will notice that there are lots of other shortcuts that you can modify here, many of them belong to the system. Feel free to modify them if you need to, add ones that are still unassigned, and create new ones for apps. There’s a reset option if you run into trouble so nothing is permanent.

Screen brightness is a basic control on any display. You can change it to whatever suits you or if you have the hardware for it, you can use adaptive brightness. Adaptive brightness is fairly common and is found on desktops and mobiles alike. It changes the brightness of the screen based on the ambient light. It’s useful but you must have hardware that supports it. If you want to change screen brightness based on time of day though, you’ll find there aren’t a lot of options out there. Most apps that claim to do this are not reliable but ClickMonitorDDC is the rare exception.

This article deals with screen brightness and not the temperature of the screen. For some reason, most app developers equate screen brightness with screen temperature when they are distinctively different. If you’re looking to change the screen temperature based on time of day, use Night Light on Windows 10, or use the F.lux app.

Change screen brightness based on time of day

Download and run ClickMonitorDDC. The app runs in the system tray. Open it and click the button at the top left of the panel that appears. In the new settings window that opens, go to the Timer, Transfer, Limits tab.

On the Time, Transfer, Limits tab, you will see a section called ‘auto-run command-lines’, it has support for eight different time triggers that we’re going to use to change the screen brightness. You also have the option to change the contrast and luminance but you can leave it out if you want.

First, set the time when the brightness should change. Next, enter the letter ‘b’ and follow it up with the brightness level you want to set at that time. For contrast, add a space after the first command and enter ‘c’, follow it up with the contrast value you want to set. Finally, if you want to set luminance, enter an ‘l’ and its level. This will set the blue luminance level.

Sample settings

b20 c50 l200 b10 c40 b25

Add as many time triggers as you need and the app will allow. Click Apply and OK. The app will change the screen brightness for all your displays. If for some reason the app doesn’t change the brightness on one of your displays, you can use this very same app to sync brightness between them.

There is really only one limitation to this method; it will only work on external displays that support the DDC-protocol. It will work for all laptop displays though you may not be able to set the contrast level for an internal display.

macOS has widgets that appear in the Notification Center. Some come out-of-the-box on the operating system, others can be added by third-party apps that you install. Of course, these widgets aren’t allowed to litter the notification center at will. Users have to enable them unless they’re stock widgets which are already enabled. That said, regardless if a widget is a stock widget or added by a third-party, here’s how you can add/remove widgets in Notification Center.

Add/remove widgets in Notification Center

Click the Notification Center icon at the top right of the menu bar. Make sure you’re on the Today tab of the Notification Center. Scroll all the way down. You may see one of two things; an edit button, or a new button. The new button will also show you how many new widgets are available to be enabled. Regardless of what you see, click the Edit or New button.

The Notification Center will expand and reveal a new panel with all the widgets that you can enable. Click the plus button next to a widget and it will be added to the Today tab in Notification Center. To remove a widget, look at the ones listed in the left panel and click the red minus button at the top left of a widget.

When you’re done adding and removing widgets, click the Done button at the bottom left, or just click anywhere outside the Notification Center.

Adding widgets is fairly easy but just because you’ve added a widget doesn’t mean it will work. It may rely on certain permissions or it may have problems of its own. Sometimes a widget just needs a little time to fetch and display information. Widgets are a great way to get a quick look at live data but the widget itself needs to fetch the data and they can be slow sometimes. Adding and removing a widget might, in rare circumstances, help.

Widgets are part of apps, or some apps run mostly or entirely as widgets. The point is, an app must come with its own widget. You cannot force an app to show a widget in the Notification Center. Apps that come with a widget will probably advise it on their Mac App store page, or the product page. A lot of apps have them if it suits their functionality but they tend to be more common on iOS than on macOS. Chrome has a widget on iOS but not on macOS.

Screen mirroring between different devices is often complicated. The complications come mostly from establishing a reliable connection between the devices. Software is what gets the job done but again, it comes down to two things; how easy it is to set up, and how reliable the connection will be. Additionally, you might also want something that works for both Android phones and iPhones. LetsView is an app that fits the bill nicely. It’s really easy to set up. Your Windows 10 PC and your phone(s) need to be on the same WiFi network. The connection will be wireless.

Need to mirror an iPhone on macOS? Use QuickTime.

Mirror and record a phone

Download and install LetsView. When you run the app, it walks you through the setup process. Pick the type of phone you want to mirror and record.

For both iPhones and Android phones, the app gives you an option to wirelessly connect via your device’s own features, or you can download the LetsView companion app to your phone and use it. Since we’re focusing on simplicity, we’re going to do this without the companion app.

On your phone, you will have to connect to the app. iPhones use AirPlay, and Android phones use the built-in wireless display feature.

The app has a fairly simple interface. The record button is at the top and you can start recording whenever you want. There’s also an option to draw on the screen though it goes away when you start recording. If you click the three-dashed icon, you will see options to go to full screen, pin the window to the top, and take a screenshot.

The recording is free of any watermarks. The annotation feature is a bit basic; you don’t have a lot of colors to choose from and the weight of the drawing tool can’t be changed. Anything that you draw can only be saved if you screenshot it.

As for the streaming resolution, LetsView supports 4K resolution but your phone should support it too. Screenshots are saved in PNG format, and recordings are saved in MP4 format. If you have a device that supports Miracast, it too can stream to your Windows 10 PC with LetsView. Overall, LetsView is a very capable app. It’s surprising that it’s free. The product page doesn’t list any restriction of any sort which means no watermarks and unlimited streaming and recording.

Since the app can connect and stream wirelessly over a WiFi network, you can stream your phone’s screen from any room to your PC. You can even stream your camera feed to your desktop.

Folder Actions are a type of script that you can create on macOS with Automator. They’re useful actions that are specific to folders. You can create a folder action that will run when a new file is added to a certain folder, or when a file is deleted from it. It’s really flexible. That said, if you’d like to clean up your Folder Actions library, it’s pretty easy to do. It takes a script to delete a folder action and the script already exists on your Mac. You just need to know where it is, and what it’s called.

Delete a folder action

Open Finder and go to the following location.

Library/Scripts/Folder Actions

Make sure you do not go to the Library folder in your own Home folder.

Inside this folder, you will see a ‘Remove Folder Actions.scpt’ file. Run this script and it will open in Automator. This script is a stock script so it’s locked for editing. Click the Play button to run it.

When you run the script, you will see a pop-up listing folder actions. Select which one you want to remove. If you do not see the folder action you want to remove, you will have to trigger it. Execute whatever action it is that triggers the folder action. For example, if you’ve set a folder action to run when a file is moved to a particular folder, add a file to it and then run this script. The pop-up will list the folder that the action is set for. Select it, and click OK to delete it.

There is one slight shortcoming with this method; if you have several folder actions set for a particular folder, they will all be deleted. The script doesn’t delete actions by name. Instead, it deletes them by folder name.

What you can do in this case is to make sure you have a back up of all the folder actions that you intend to keep after you remove the one you don’t need anymore. Adding it back is almost as easy as getting rid of it so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Deleting a folder action does not ever result in data loss. Any changes that were made as a result of the deleted folder action will still be there. Deleting the action does not undo its past actions so if you’ve used a Folder action to sort files, those files will still be in the same sorted order even after you delete the folder action.

Larger monitors are great for the screen real estate they provide but in order to use them, especially one that’s an HD display you have to scale it up or everything is going to be too small. Windows 10 has a built-in scaling feature that works, and it mostly works well. The scaling applies to everything the OS’ UI, and the apps that you’ve installed. While Windows 10 works great when it’s scaled up, the apps are a different story. Not all apps work well with this feature and often you get blurry text and overflowing elements making it difficult to use the app. Here’s how you can disable scaling in apps but still keep it On for Windows 10.

Disable scaling in apps

First things first, if you’re not already using scaling but intend to, turn it on and set it to the scale that suits your screen. You can enable scaling from the Settings app. Go to the System group of settings and select the Display tab.

Once you’ve done that, check which apps have problems with scaling. To disable scaling for a particular app, you need to first examine how you access it i.e., the app shortcut that you use. Find it, and right-click it. From the context menu, select Properties. Look for a tab called Compatibility. If this tab is absent, look for the app’s EXE in its install folder. This should be in the Program Files or Program Files(x86) folder in your Windows drive. If the tab is still absent, the app likely doesn’t support scaling.

On the Compatibility tab, click the ‘Change high DPI settings’ button.

In the new window that opens, enable the ‘Override high DPI scaling behavior. Scaling performed by:’ option, and open the dropdown under it. Select the ‘System’ option, and click OK.

It’s a good idea to restart the app, and your system after you make changes to the scaling settings. The above method should be repeated for all apps. That’s all there is to it. It seems you cannot disable scaling for UWP apps. This method only works for desktop apps though you’ll find that they’re the ones that generally do not work well with Windows 10 scaling.

If you’re having trouble with a UWP app i.e., blurred text or overflowing UI elements, it might be a problem with the app itself. You can go to advanced scaling settings in the Settings app and allow Windows 10 to fix these problems. It may, or may not make a difference.

Folders are a simple organizing tool. They’re effective and if you can take the time to create them, name them properly, and move items to them as and when they arrive, you will rarely lose files. Folders are a common enough concept on desktops but emails are also sorted into folders. Gmail is no exception though it doesn’t call its folders ‘folders’. Instead, they’re called labels, and they’re really easy to create. Here’s how you can create folders in Gmail.

Folders in Gmail

Open Gmail for web, and sign in. At the top right, you will see your profile picture. Under it, there’s a cogwheel button. Click it, and select Settings from the menu.

The Settings page has several different tabs. Go to the Labels tab and look for a button called ‘Create new label’. Click it.

You’ll get a window where you can enter the name of the label i.e., the folder you want to create, and an option to nest it under a different label. Nesting a label under another one is basically how you create a sub-folder but since this is an email service and not your desktop, nesting only goes one level deep. Click Create and the label will appear in the column on the left.

Labels are more than just folders; you can use them to automatically sort emails. They’re like rules that you can apply for emails that are coming in but unlike rules that the Mail app on macOS has, or that the Outlook desktop client has, these are fairly basic. Gmail calls them ‘filters’. To create a filter, you can select an email, and click the more options button at the top for the filter option.

As to why the folders are called labels, it might have to do with the language still going back to how emails or rather snail mail was stored back when it was common. It’s that or Gmail doesn’t see them strictly as folders and thus needed to differentiate them with a different name. Regardless, for desktop email clients that support it, when you connect a Gmail email these labels are imported as folders.

You can go back and edit a label whenever you want and if you’ve got one too many labels, you can assign a color to it. The labels are all sorted alphabetically so there’s no way to move a folder/label to the top of the list but an alphabetically sorted list is easy enough to use.