Exciting tips

An iPhone doesn’t connect to a Windows 10 PC the same way it does to a Mac. That said, it is still pretty simple to connect your iPhone to a Windows 10 PC and access videos and photos from the camera roll. The iPhone shows up as a simple media device. Any drivers required are installed automatically by Windows 10. That said sometimes when you connect your iPhone to a Windows 10 PC, instead of seeing images and videos, you get the ‘This folder is empty’ message. Here’s how to fix it.

Fix ‘This folder is empty’

The ‘This folder is empty’ message has a few very specific causes. If this is the first time you’re connecting your iPhone to a Windows 10 PC, you’re connecting it after resetting the PC, or after installing Windows 10 again, you need to authorize the computer on your iPhone.

Go to your iPhone, and you will see a message asking if you want to trust the computer. Tap ‘Trust’ and then enter your passcode to authorize it. Close File Explorer on your Windows 10 PC, and open it again. Access your iPhone, and the DCIM folder will appear.

If you’ve connected this phone to your PC multiple times, and you’re suddenly seeing this message check if you’ve unlocked your phone. If not, unlock it and the DCIM folder should appear. If it doesn’t, disconnect the phone but make sure you do not lock it again. With the phone unlocked, connect it again to your PC. Wait for the device to show up, and you will be able to access the videos and photos in it.

Lastly, and this is if the problem still doesn’t go away, check the cable you’re using. Try using a different cable to connect the phone. A bad cable can often cause problems you’d never imagine. The ‘This folder is empty’ message can be a by-product of a faulty cable. It seems unlikely but that usually solves a lot of problems. Check the cable, or change it out with another one. It is also worth changing the USB port that you’re connecting the phone to.

If everything checks out, you may need to uninstall the device from Device Manager. It should appear under Portable Devices. Right-click the iPhone, and select the uninstall option. Disconnect the phone, make sure it is unlocked, and then connect it again. Authorize the computer to access the device if you need to, and the DCIM folder should appear.

On Windows 10, apps are supposed to remember which monitor they were launched on. When you open them, they should open on the same monitor they were open on before. That’s the principle of it, but it doesn’t always stick, especially with games. With games, it’s a bit more complicated because they tend to run in full screen and moving a full-screen app between monitors is almost impossible. It’s a bit of a mess, and there’s a slightly less messy way to work around it. Here’s how you can run an app on a specific monitor on Windows 10

Run an app on a specific monitor

We’re going to use an app called TvGameLauncher. This app is for games, but it will work with any other desktop app. You have to launch it, and then run the game, or any other app through it. It will run the app on the monitor you select.

Go ahead and download TvGameLauncher, extract it, and run the file called ‘TVGameLauncherGUI.exe’. The first setting you need to check is the TV and Monitor dropdowns. Make sure all your displays are detected. Choose which monitor you’d like to use as the ‘TV’, and which as the ‘Monitor’. Next, uncheck the ‘Enabled’ option. This is optional but recommended. If you leave it enabled, it will change your primary monitors which isn’t something you want.

Once you’re done with all this, drag & drop the EXE for the app, or game on to the app. If you drop it onto the section on the left, i.e., the Run on TV section, it will run the app on the monitor that is set as the TV. If you drop it onto the ‘TV shortcut on the desktop’ section, it will create a desktop shortcut that, when run, will run the app or game on the TV monitor.

You need to run TvGameLauncher each time you want to run an app on a specific monitor but, creating a shortcut for it is a good way to streamline the process and skip this step. Remember which shortcut is for a particular app, and move your shortcuts to a folder to keep things tidy on your desktop. You can also pin shortcuts to the Start Menu, and group them together to keep it organized.

The app works really well; not once did it fail to run an app on the correct monitor. There were no side-effects; no change in screen resolution, the icons remained as they were, and no apps crashed. The transition was as smooth as you’d want it.

Desktop computers, regardless of what OS they’re running, can talk to each other if they’re connected to the same network. This can be a WiFi network or a wired network. Each OS has its own settings for enabling file sharing. If you’re trying to share files from macOS, you have to enable file sharing before the Mac will be visible on the network. Here’s how you can enable file sharing on macOS.

Enable file sharing on macOS

The process below is for a WiFi network but it will work the same for an ethernet network as well.

Open System Preferences and select the Sharing preference on the bottom/last row.

Here, you will see a column on the left with an option for ‘File Sharing’. Select it, and then click the ‘Options’ button.

A new panel will open with options for enabling two different types of file sharing protocols. The first is SMB, and the second is AFP. Enable both these options, or if you know which one you need specifically, enable just that one. If you’re looking to share files to a Windows system, you will see a ‘Windows File Sharing’ section. Under it, select the account you want to share files from, and that should do the trick.

Your Mac will now be visible on the network. Other Macs and Windows systems will see it as well when they visit their own network settings. As for connecting to the Mac, that will depend on the system you’re accessing the Mac from.

The file sharing method on macOS is different from that on Windows 10 but you will need to enable file sharing on the other system as well. It goes without saying that login credentials for the system that you’re accessing will also be required.

File sharing over networks is generally slow, however, it often beats using a cloud service or hardware i.e., storage devices, to transfer files between two computers that are not in close proximity to each other. For smaller files e.g., documents, and images, it’s convenient. For large files, those that are over a GB in size, you might want to consider using actual hardware e.g., a USB drive to get files. It’s less convenient but far quicker.

If you’re definitely looking to share files over a network, using a LAN will be quicker than sharing over a WiFi network. The options will be the same mostly. As for security, both afford the same security features and logins are needed to establish a connection.

Power Plans is one of the best features on Windows 10. They offer flexibility that you won’t find on other desktop operating systems and, you can customize them. For simple power management, you have the option to either favor a better battery life i.e., go with low power consumption settings, or go with better performance i.e., let your hardware run at its optimal best. Out of the box, Windows 10 has three power plans; the Balanced power plan, the Power Saver plan, and the High Performance plan. All three plans can be customized but if you’ve changed it too much, and want to reset it, you can. The process is fairly simple. Here’s how you can reset a Windows 10 power plan.

Reset Windows 10 power plan

Open file explorer and in the navigation bar, enter the following. Tap Enter.

Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options

This is where you will see the various power plans that are available. Click the ‘Change plan settings’ option. In the window that opens, click Change advanced power settings.

In the window that opens, you will see a button at the bottom ‘Restore Plan Defaults’. Click it, and the plan’s settings will all be reset to their base values.

You can now use it as is, or you can change it again.

If you’ve modified a power plan so much so that it is no longer the balanced or high performance plan that it originally was, and you want to keep it but also have it set to its defaults, there’s a way to do that. You need to create a new power plan. When you create a new power plan, you have to choose one of the three plans as the base, and then modify it. You can choose to not modify it. That way, you will have the original modified plan and another that is set to its default values.

To create a new power plan, open File Explorer and paste the following in the location bar.

Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options

Click ‘Create new plan’ in the column on the left. On the Create a power plan screen, you will see the three plans that you can use as a base. Select the one you want for its default settings, and click Next. Don’t change anything else but give the plan a name so you know which one it is.

Changing the plans is easy, and you can even export power plans between Windows 10 PCs if you want.

Macs are generally machines that run smoothly. You will never really have trouble with the hardware unless you’ve dropped it from a great height, battered it, or spilled something on it. That said, if the fans on your Mac are suddenly running at full without any sign of slowing down or turning off, your MacBook’s battery isn’t detected, and the keyboard backlight won’t turn on, you have a slight hardware problem. The good news is, it is very likely an easy fix.

Fix fans running at full, no battery, and no keyboard backlight

This solution is for a MacBook or Mac that was otherwise running without any problems and suddenly began to exhibit this behavior. If you dropped your Mac, hit it or something fell on it, or you spilled something on it, and now have fans running at full, no battery, and no keyboard backlight, then this may or may not work.

You need to perform an SMC reset. An SMC or a System Management Controller manages various hardware and hardware controllers on your Mac. When there’s a problem with one, some, or all of them, resetting it is often the fix.

On a desktop Mac i.e., one that does not have a removable battery, shut it down. Once it’s shut down, remove the power cable and wait for 15 seconds. Plug it in again, and wait another 5 minutes. After that, press the power button to turn your Mac On. The problem with the fans should be fixed.

On a MacBook, the process is a bit different. Shut it down normally. Make sure the power adapter is connected. Hold down the Left Shift+Control+Option+Power button for fifteen seconds, and then release them all. Next, wait for five seconds and then tap the Power button. Your problems should be fixed.

If you have trouble turning the MacBook on, remove the power adapter and wait for 5 seconds. Next, connect it and at the same time, press and hold the power button for five seconds. Release it, wait 5 seconds. After that, tap the power button to turn the MacBook on.

If this doesn’t fix the problem with your hardware, you can try a PRAM reset but that doesn’t have anything to do with hardware or these sorts of problems. Still, it’s worth a try. If the problem doesn’t sort itself out, you should have someone take a look.

Ideally, you should take it to an Apple store but if you’re not under warranty, there are cheaper places to have it fixed.

The Launchpad on macOS is strictly for apps. There isn’t much you can do about this. Apple is not known for its flexibility so there’s no trick way to add a file to it. If you want to be able to open a file from Launchpad, you will have to work around the limitation and it’s surprisingly easy to do.

Open file from Launchpad

In order to open a file from Launchpad, you need an app to open it and you can make this app yourself with Automator. All you need is the path to the file you want to open and that’s easy enough to get. You can also open multiple files with the same app, or create as many apps as you want to open files. It’s up to you.

Get file path

Open Finder and navigate to the file you want to open from Launchpad. Hold down the Option key, and right-click the file. From the context menu, select the copy as path option.

Create Automator app

Open Automator and click New Document at the bottom left. In the panel that opens, select Application.

With Automator open, you need to search for and add the ‘Run Shell Script’ action. Use the search bar and drag and drop it onto the pane on the right.

In the Run Shell Script action, enter the following.

open file-to-path

Replace file-to-path with the path that you copied. If you’re looking to open multiple files with one app, add each file’s path on its own line. Once you’re done, go to File>Export. Give the app a name, and save it to the Applications folder.

Open Launchpad and you will see the newly created app. It will still have the Automator icon but, you can change it. We’ve got a detailed post on how to change the icon for an app or a script. Use it to change the icon for the app. When you click this app, it will open the file or files, that you specified the path for.

The file(s) will open in the default app that’s set for it. You can open this app again with Automator and edit it whenever you want. It’s a pretty simple way to access important files and to open several different files at once with one click.

If you need to create several apps for opening files, it’s a good idea to group them into a single folder, or a few different folders. They’ll remain organized and still be easy to access.

Windows 10 has a neat feature called power management. Power management is for the various hardware components on your computer. Hardware consumes power and Power management allows them to turn off or run in a low power state. The keyboard and mouse are one example of hardware that’s powered down, but hard disks are also powered down when they aren’t in use. It’s a useful feature but if you need to disable power management for whatever reason, you can. Here’s how.

Disable power management for devices

You can disable power management for devices from the Power Options screen. The quickest way to get to it is to open File Explorer and enter the following in the location bar.

Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options

Here, you will see all the power plans that you’ve configured on your system. Power management is disabled on a per-power-plan basis. Click ‘Change plan settings’ for the power plan you want to disable power management on. On the next screen, click ‘Change advanced power settings’.

In the window that opens, you’re going to have to go through several different settings to disable power management for devices. There isn’t a single switch that will do the job. Instead, you can choose on a per-device basis, which device to disable power management for.

The options you see in this window will differ based on the hardware that is installed on your system, and what features it supports. The items you need to go through here are Hard disk, wireless adapter settings, USB selective suspend under USB settings, Platform and thermal framework settings, PCI express, and Processor power management. Check out the settings under these sections and disable anything that limits power.

You should go through all the settings and see if you find anything else for managing power supplied to devices.

We should mention that Windows 10 has power plans that favor better battery and that favor performance. The performance-based plans are power hungry and will likely have many power management options disabled. You can try using it instead of changing the settings for the balanced power plan. You can also create a custom power plan, or you can enable the Ultimate Power Plan on Windows 10.

If some of your devices are still powering down after you’ve disabled all the options under the current power plan, you can check the device’s properties under Device Manager and see if it has a power management option that you can disable.

The context menu on Windows 10 is a UI element that any app can add options to. Windows 10 has its options in the context menu as well so, depending on how many apps you’ve installed, the context menu can get quite busy. It can also slow down. Users may attribute it to too many apps working through the context menu but that’s not it. The menu slows down because an app in it isn’t working right. Here’s how to fix a slow context menu on Windows 10.

Fix a slow context menu

To fix a slow context menu, you need to use a free utility called ShellExView. It’s a free app, and it’s awesome. The fix will take a little time but, it will be worth it. Go ahead and download ShellExView.

Once you’ve downloaded the app, run it. The first thing to do is go to Options on the menu bar and enable the ‘Hide All Microsoft Extensions’ button. This will hide the items that Windows 10 adds to the context menu and keeps you from disabling them by accident.

What you’re left with after that is everything that’s been added by a third-party app. ShellExView displays lots of things so what you need to do next is sort the items from the context menu to the top. To do that, click the title of the Type column. All context menu items will be sorted to the top.

Now, it’s time for a little trial and error. Select an app that adds an item to the Context Menu, and click the red button at the top left under the menu bar. This will disable the item. Next, you have to restart Explorer. ShellExView has a built-in option of restarting Explorer but it’s best to use a native Windows 10 method to do it. ShellExView seems to have trouble with it.

After you restart Explorer, right-click an item and see if the context menu pops up any quicker. If not, i.e., it’s still slow, disable another app and restart Explorer. Keep doing this until the context menu is faster. Once you find which app is causing the context menu to slow down, you can enable all the others.

If it turns out that an essential app is what’s slowing the context menu down, you’re going to either have to live without it, or you’re going to have to get used to a slow context menu. There isn’t much else that can be done however, you can always check to see if you have the latest version of the app running. If not, update it and it might fix the problem. It might even help to uninstall and reinstall the app.

Apple integrates is products with all its other products really well. It does still manage to miss a few tricks. Case in point; you can’t view your iPhone’s battery level on your Mac. You can be on the same WiFi network, using the same Apple ID, and you don’t get to see the battery level. You can connect it to your Mac, and see the battery level but that’s terribly restrictive. If you want to get low iPhone battery alerts on macOS, and also view the battery level for your iPhone from the Notification Center, you need an app called Batteries Widget for Mac.

Need battery alerts for your Mac? There’s an app that does the job.

iPhone battery alerts on macOS

Connect your iPhone to your Mac, and open Finder (on Catalina). Select the iPhone under Locations in the column on the left. In the pane on the right, scroll down and make sure ‘Show this device when on Wi-Fi’  is enabled. You can disconnect the iPhone from your Mac but make sure it is connected to the same WiFi network that the Mac is on.

Don’t see the iPhone under Locations? It’s a simple fix.

Download Batteries Widget for Mac and run it. Make sure you move the app to the Applications folder. Open the app’s preferences and make sure Notifications are enabled for it. Select the iPhone that you want to get alerts for.

Batteries Widget for Mac is a widget so you need to enable it in Notification Center. Click the Notification Center button at the top right of the menu bar. Click the Edit button at the very bottom, select the Batteries Widget for Mac widget to add it to Notification Center. Give it a minute and the widget will show you the current battery level for your Mac, and your iPhone.

As for low battery alerts, you will get them when your iPhone’s battery drops to 20%, and then to 10%. You can’t set up custom battery level alerts.

Batteries Widget for Mac is not free. It costs $2.99 but it has a fourteen day trial period. That’s two weeks worth of time to try the app out and if it works for you, the price tag on the app is more than worth it.

Batteries Widget for Mac will work for iPhones, AirPods, trackpads, and keyboards. It will not work for an Apple Watch and that’s all down to Apple. The iOS version on your iPhone doesn’t matter with this app however, it will only work on Mojave or Catalina.

The Launchpad on macOS is strictly for apps. There isn’t much you can do about this. Apple is not known for its flexibility so there’s no trick way to add a file to it. If you want to be able to open an app from Launchpad, you will have to work around the limitation and it’s surprisingly easy to do.

Open app from Launchpad

In order to open an app from Launchpad, you need an app to open it and you can make this app yourself with Automator. All you need is the path to the file you want to open and that’s easy enough to get. You can also open multiple files with the same app, or create as many apps as you want to open files. It’s up to you.

Get file path

Open Finder and navigate to the file you want to open from Launchpad. Hold down the Option key, and right-click the file. From the context menu, select the copy as path option.

Create Automator app

Open Automator and click New Document at the bottom left. In the panel that opens, select Application.

With Automator open, you need to search for and add the ‘Run Shell Script’ action. Use the search bar and drag and drop it onto the pane on the right.

In the Run Shell Script action, enter the following.

open file-to-path

Replace file-to-path with the path that you copied. If you’re looking to open multiple files with one app, add each file’s path on its own line. Once you’re done, go to File>Export. Give the app a name, and save it to the Applications folder.

Open Launchpad and you will see the newly created app. It will still have the Automator icon but, you can change it. We’ve got a detailed post on how to change the icon for an app or a script. Use it to change the icon for the app. When you click this app, it will open the file or files, that you specified the path for.

The file(s) will open in the default app that’s set for it. You can open this app again with Automator and edit it whenever you want. It’s a pretty simple way to access important files and to open several different files at once with one click.

If you need to create several apps for opening files, it’s a good idea to group them into a single folder, or a few different folders. They’ll remain organized and still be easy to access.