Twitter was a place where live updates came in, constantly. Whatever appeared on your timeline reflected when something was said. This is what initially set Twitter apart from other social networks but as the number of Twitter users grew, so did the noise in the average user’s feed, and Twitter switched over to a different time line which placed emphasis on important or popular tweets. Only recently has it brought back the ability to switch to a chronological Twitter feed.
Chronological feed – Twitter web
Visit Twitter in your browser. You must have moved to the new Twitter web design in order to switch to the chronological Twitter feed. The new web design is being offered to users to try out. If you don’t see an option to try the new Twitter out, you’ll have to wait until it appears or until the design is rolled out to everyone.
On your home feed, you will see this sparkle button.
Click it and from the menu, select the ‘See latest Tweets instead’ option and you will be switched over to a chronological Twitter feed.
Chronological feed – Twitter apps
You can get a chronological Twitter feed on the Twitter apps for iOS and Android as well. The process is nearly similar but doesn’t require that you have any new feature or design enabled. The apps got this feature a while ago and it’s available for everyone.
Open the Twitter app and look at the very top of the home tab. You will see the same sparkle icon that you get on Twitter for web. Tap it, and from the menu that opens, select See latest Tweets instead. Your feed will refresh and show you items in chronological order.
This option will persist between different sessions which means once you set your feed to show you tweets in chronological order, it will stick to it unless you decide to change it.
The Top Tweets view isn’t bad. In fact, if you’re on Twitter during off hours i.e., when most people are asleep and it’s highly unlikely that your feed will refresh often, the top tweets make sure you have something new to read, regularly, all through the night. The chronological order does no such thing.
Top tweets are also a good way to know what news items are trending even if they are unable to trend worldwide or countrywide with a hash tag of their own.
The new Twitter for web layout also brings bookmarks to the web version and it really is about time.
There are tons of browser extensions that allow you to unlock the hidden Netflix categories, get IMDb ratings, and even load external subtitles if you need to. Not many focus on making the viewing aspect of it better. It may be because, as far as Netflix is concerned, there isn’t much room for variability but if you ever wanted to zoom or rotate Netflix, you can in Chrome with an extension called Netflix Flip.
Zoom And Rotate Netflix
Install Netflix Flip from the Chrome Web Store, and visit Netflix in your browser. The extension adds a red button that kind of looks like the refresh button in Chrome next to the URL bar. Once you’re on Netflix, and you’ve selected a title to play, click this button.
A menu will open with three buttons; Zoom Out, Zoom In, and Rotate. They’re self-explanatory.
There’s no reset button so if you’ve zoomed in too much, or zoomed out too far, you’re either going to have to refresh the page, or guess the size to set it back to normal. With the rotate feature you can tell far more easily when you’re back to the original position.
It’s possible that you’re thinking, why in the world would you ever need to rotate your screen when watching Netflix. You might need it to meet certain monitor orientation needs. The zoom in/out feature is useful if Netflix leaves empty space when you watch in full screen mode or you just want to take a look at something on your screen more closely.
There’s no defined usage scenario for this other than to give you these tools for Netflix. These tools aren’t alien for media players but Netflix has a notoriously simple media player which is why developers often create helpful little tools to make up for its shortcomings. This extension is just another one of them.
Netflix has added a native option that lets users skip the intro to a series though it doesn’t always work, particularly if you’re watching an anime series. Users originally skipped the intro to a show via an extension however Netflix was quick to catch on and it added an option that allows users to skip both the intro, and the recap of a show.
With respect to the media player that Netflix has, there are features that are missing. For example, users can only jump back by ten seconds and that too only on the Windows 10 app. The media player on the web version has even fewer features which is why extensions like this are developed.
Google is the default search engine in Chrome and because it is the most popular search engine today, not many people are interested in changing it. That said, Chrome doesn’t tie you down to its default search engine and you’re free to pick whichever one you want to use. If you’re search engine has been changed by an extension, or an app on your system, you can change that as well. Here’s how.
Chrome Default Search Engine
There are two ways to change the default search in Chrome. You can change it by visiting the home page for the search engine, or you can change it from Chrome’s own settings.
Search Engine home page
Search engines compete with each other for users. When a search engine detects that it is not the default one in your browser, it gives you a one-click button to set it as the default search engine.
Take bing for example. If you visit this bing page you will see a button that allows you to set it as the default search engine. You will need to install an app to get the job done and that may not be something you’re comfortable with. Additionally, not all search engines offer a similar option which is why you should know how you can change the search engine from Chrome’s settings.
Chrome settings
Open Chrome and click the more options button at the top right. From the menu that opens, select ‘Settings’. On the Settings page, scroll down to the Search Engine section.
You may already have a bunch of search engines added if you frequently search a particular website for something. Open the ‘Search engine used in the address bar’ dropdown and view the already added search engines. If you see the one you want to use, select it.
If you do not see the search engine you want to use, click Manage Search engines.
Before you can add a search engine, you need the correct search query URL for it. You can look it up with Google, or most other search engines. For example, for DuckDuckGo, you need to enter;
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&atb=v81-4__
On the Manage search engines page, click Add, and enter the URL in the query field. Give the search engine a name and a keyword. Click save. Next, click the more options button next to the newly added search engine, and select Make default.
Malicious extensions and apps
Chrome is proactive with respect to extensions changing default settings in the browser. It will alert you when an extension has changed your default search engine however, if you’re unable to change it back try the following;
Uninstall the extension, or desktop app, that’s forcing the change. Chrome can boot extensions that are malicious but desktop apps can and do change the default search engine and browsers don’t have much control over them. Once you’ve removed the app/extension, you should be able to set the default search engine in Chrome to whatever you want.
You can reset Chrome to get rid of malicious extensions that have taken control of the browsers. In this case, you do not want to back up and restore your Chrome profile folder as that too may be infected. To reset Chrome, open the Browser and click the more options button. Select Settings from the menu, scroll down the settings page, and click Advanced. Scroll to the very end, and click Clean Up Computer. After the clean up is complete, return to this same settings’ area and click Restore settings to their original defaults.
If you’re still unable to get rid of a malicious extension or app, use an anti-virus to scan your system and remove it.
On small screens, media players or websites that can play media often struggle with screen space. The Facebook apps are a good example of this. On older versions of the app, users were unable to scroll through their news feed if they were watching a video. Facebook rectified this by adding a floating video player. Android has something like this but it’s often subject to apps supporting it so it’s not reliable. While this sort of feature is usually found on smartphones, you will occasionally run into it on desktop websites. Facebook has one, and now there’s a YouTube mini player that lets you watch a video and browse YouTube as you watch.
YouTube Mini Player
The YouTube mini player is live so all you need to do to use it is visit YouTube and pick a video to play. Once the video is playing, look at the controls bar on the media player.
There’s a new player size between the gear icon and the theater mode icon which lets you enable the YouTube mini player. Simply click on this icon and the video will be minimized to the bottom right of your screen.
You are now free to browse YouTube as much as you want. You can pause the video or skip to the next one from this smaller, floating player. If you want to return to the default player, just click the title of the video. The YouTube mini player is dark mode compliant.
Since this feature has been added to the desktop version of the YouTube website, you might be wondering why it’s even needed. Users aren’t starved for screen space and they can open a new tab or a new window and browse YouTube on it if they want. For anyone on Windows 10, the useful windows snapping feature makes it all the more easy to do.
This feature isn’t about screen space. Facebook’s desktop website has something identical to this. It basically allows viewers to continue watching a video while also being able to check out other things that look interesting. For users, this is a convenient way to keep watching videos and for YouTube, it’s a good way to make sure users don’t leave the site and continue watching more and more videos.
If you’re looking for a particular video while also watching one, this feature is going to be useful. Obviously, you cannot play two videos at the same time but it’s going to be useful nevertheless.
People are talking about Linux more and more in the mainstream these days, and even Windows users are starting to take an interest in the platform. However, trying out a new type of operating system can be scary if you’ve never used it before. Since Linux has a perception of being difficult to install, we’ve compiled a list of 3 easy ways you can try out Linux, while keeping your Microsoft Windows PC intact.
1. Linux via a virtual machine in VirtualBox
If you’ve ever wanted to try out Linux on a Windows PC, you’ve probably worried about losing your files, or even your entire Microsoft Windows installation. Thankfully, it is possible to install any Linux operating system without doing a thing to your existing Windows operating system! How is this possible? With the power of virtual machines.
“What is a virtual machine,” you might be asking yourself. Well, it’s an emulated computer running inside of a real one through special software. Thanks to this software, the virtual machine (AKA VM) allows users to experience a full OS experience in a contained environment.
The best virtual machine software to use on Windows to try out various Linux operating systems is VirtualBox. The reason that it’s a great choice is that VirtualBox is free, and there are also several pre-installed Linux OSes up on OSBoxes that can be imported into the app in seconds!
Trying out Linux on Windows with VirtualBox
If you like the sound of taking a Linux operating system or two for a test drive on your Windows PC, here’s what to do. First, head over to the VirtualBox website. Then, once there, download the latest release of the app for Microsoft Windows, and install it on your computer.
When the VirtualBox application is set up on your Windows computer, head over to OSBoxes.org, and download a Linux OS (VDI image) from the list, and extract it with 7zip. With the machine extracted, follow the step-by-step instructions below to create a runnable Linux VM on Windows.
Step 1: Click “Tools,” then select the blue “New” button to create a new VM.
Step 2: Fill out the VM’s name in the “Name,” box.
Step 3: Select the Linux option under “Type.” Do not select “Other,” as you will not be able to use VirtualBox’s automatic OS detection feature.
Step 4: Select the “Version” drop-down menu, and set it to the name of the Linux OS you downloaded from OSBoxes. Or, if you can’t find it, look through and set it to “Other Linux.”
Step 5: Under “Memory size,” set the appropriate amount of RAM the VM should have. Unsure about how much RAM to set? Try “1024 MB”.
Step 6: Under “Use an existing virtual hard disk file,” browse for the VDI VM file you extracted from the 7z archive downloaded on OSBoxes.
Step 7: Select “Create” to finish creating the VM.
Step 8: Right-click on the VM in the list, and select “Start” to start up Linux on your Windows PC through a Virtual Machine!
2. Windows Subsystem for Linux
Microsoft is partnering with prominent Linux players like OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian to deliver a Linux command-line experience on Windows 10 (via the Microsoft Store) for developers and fans of the open source platform. So, if you’re interested in taking Linux for a spin, consider this route.
The Windows Subsystem for Linux isn’t a feature that is enabled by default on Windows 10. To enable the feature, follow our guide on the subject here. Then, once you’ve enabled the Subsystem feature on Windows 10, open up the Microsoft Store, search for “Ubuntu,” “Debian,” “OpenSUSE,” or “Fedora” and install them to take full advantage of the Linux command-line from the comfort of your Windows 10 PC!
3. Ubuntu via a USB flash drive
One of the best things about Linux distributions is that if you install one to a USB drive, you’ll be able to boot from it and experience the full Linux desktop without ever having to install anything to your computer.
If you’re really interested in taking Ubuntu, or any other Linux operating system for a test drive, but you don’t want to deal with the complexities of Virtual Machines or the Windows Subsystem for Linux, this is a good option for trying out various Linux operating systems.
Try out Ubuntu on a USB flash drive
Installing Ubuntu onto a USB flash drive starts out by downloading a USB imaging application on Windows. Head over to the Etcher website, download the Windows version of the app and install it. Then, launch it on your Windows PC, and follow the step-by-step instructions below.
Step 1: Go to Ubuntu’s official website and click on the “Download” button to reveal the download options.
Step 2: In the pop-up download menu that appears when you select “Download,” locate “Ubuntu Desktop” and click on it to go to the Ubuntu Desktop download page.
Step 3: Look through the Ubuntu desktop options and download either Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS or Ubuntu 19.04.
Step 4: In Etcher, find the “Select Image” button and click it with the mouse. Then, use the file browser window to add the Ubuntu ISO file to the app.
Step 5: Plug in a 2GB (or higher) USB Flash drive into the USB port on your Windows PC.
Step 6: Click “Flash!” to install Ubuntu to the USB flash drive.
Step 7: Reboot your Windows PC and load it into the BIOS. From there, configure the system to boot directly to the USB flash drive, so that you may access Ubuntu.
Step 8: Click the “Try Ubuntu” button to take Ubuntu for a test drive without installing it!
Conclusion
Trying out a new operating system is always scary, and Linux isn’t designed for everyone. Still, if you’ve been interested in expanding your horizons to try out Linux, the methods covered on this list are the safest options.
What’s your favorite way to try out Linux on a Windows PC? Tell us below in the comment section!
Microsoft has been working to improve how it delivers updates. So far, its in-place Windows 10 updates have not been working that well. Users often run into problems and the oddest of bugs. When you do an in-place update, Windows 10 downloads files to your system which require some space however, in order to install the update, it also needs some extra space to complete the update.
Your PC must have some free space in order to update Windows 10. That number has always been somewhat vague but 10GB is often considered sufficient however, Microsoft has added a new feature in Windows 1903 called Reserved Storage. This is a bit of space that is reserved on your system for updates. During an update, that space will be utilized to prevent problems (though some might still occur). Here’s how you can enable or disable Reserved Space on Windows 10.
Enable or disable Reserved Storage
Reserved Storage should be enabled by default if you do a clean install of Windows 10 1903 however, you can still enable it if it isn’t. You will have to do this by editing the registry so you will need admin rights.
Tap the Win+R keyboard shortcut to open the Run box and type ‘regedit’.
In the registry editor, go to the following location;
Right-click the ShippedWithReserves value and set it to 1 to enable it. To disable it, set it to 0.
Restart your system. Restarting it won’t reserve the space right away. You will have to wait for another update.
The reserved space should show up in the Settings app. Go to the System group of settings and select the Storage tab. The Reserved Storage appears under System & Reserved.
Should you disable it?
Reserved Storage is there to make updates much smoother. It might seem unnecessary but all devices need some free space to update their firmware. Windows has, for the greater part of its life, run on hard drives and they’re fairly large but now, they’re often installed on SSDs of a smaller capacity or they run on tablets both of which don’t have a a lot of free space. That’s why users often have problems with updates.
The amount of reserved storage may not be the same for all devices and it will not include the space the Windows.old folder will take up. That folder alone can be larger than 20GB but not having the space for it won’t result in the update failing. It doesn’t count towards the space that’s needed to update Windows 10.
The new Chrome interface is now live. Update the browser to version 69 and you can use it. Part of the new design involves a revamp of the New Tab page. There are now ten speed dial spots and the thumbnail previews are gone. They’ve been replaced with website favicons/icons. If you don’t like the new design, you can disable it. Before you do though, you should give it a chance since you can now edit the speed dial in Chrome.
Edit Chrome Speed Dial
Open the New Tab page and hover the mouse cursor over one of the speed dial websites. You will see a button at the top right corner that doesn’t delete it like before. Click it.
A little window will open that lets you edit the URL of the website i.e., the speed dial. You can edit the name that appears under the speed dial which is really useful if Chrome caches the incorrect title tag for a website. If you want to delete a website, you can just click the Remove button.
The new look of the New Tab page is a lot like what Firefox has had for a while now. Firefox still has a richer New Tab page; it has highlights i.e., the websites you visit most frequently, and Top Sites which is basically the speed dial.
Firefox lets you edit your speed dial so that if it has picked up the wrong website for the speed dial, you can always edit it and add back websites you actually need. Chrome’s speed dial updated based on usage which made it both good and bad and we have to say, it’s just better to let users choose what they want.
If you’ve upgraded to the new version of Chrome, it’s a good idea to look around and explore all the new features. You can now use a local image as the background for the New Tab page. There’s also an option to use Chrome backgrounds. In the older versions of Chrome, an extension was required to change the background and that meant that performance dragged down and Chrome used up more memory.
The Chrome Backgrounds allow you to get a new background image without having to set it yourself. To change the background, open a new tab and click the cog wheel icon at the bottom right. It will give you options to use either a local image or Chrome backgrounds.
If you’re an Ubuntu Linux user with a bad internet connection and slow download speeds, you’ll be happy to know that there’s a fix for that: installing applications while offline, by using the offline app downloader Camicri Cube.
Note: the Camicri Cube app is not specific to Ubuntu, and those using Ubuntu-based Linux operating systems such as Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Zorin OS, and others have this same feature. So, feel free to follow along!
Download apps with Camicri Cube
Ubuntu’s Apt package manager makes it possible to install applications offline, as it has a built-in downloading function. That said, most users looking to download programs to use offline on Ubuntu aren’t usually fans of tinkering with complicated operating system details, so in this guide, we’re going to show you an easier way to accomplish this task, using Camicri Cube.
Camicri Cube is a web application that connects to Ubuntu’s package manager. Once it connects to it, users can use it to search for their favorite apps, download them, along with all of the dependencies it needs, and install it offline on other computers.
Install Camicri Cube
Camicri Cube is not distributed within Ubuntu’s official software repositories. It is a web-based application that runs on a local server that you host on the Ubuntu PC downloading the applications, so it’s not possible to install it through traditional means. Instead, users must download the app manually from the internet.
To download Camicri Cube, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. From there, use the terminal-based downloading tool wget to quickly download either the 32-bit or 64-bit release of the app.
Note: don’t want to use the wget downloader app? Camicri Cube is also located here, on the download page of their official website.
With the portable Camicri Cube app download via wget, you must now install the Unzip utility so that the archive can be successfully extracted via the command-line. To install the Unzip application on Ubuntu, enter the Apt command below.
sudo apt install unzip -y
With Unzip taken care of, use it to extract either the 32-bit or 64-bit Zip archive of the program, so that it can be used to install apps offline.
unzip cube4_0.1-0_Linux*.zip
After extracting the Camicri Cube app files, use the CD command to move from the home directory (~) where the terminal started into the “cube” directory.
cd cube
From here, run the Cube application to start up the local web server on the Ubuntu PC that will do the downloading. Be sure to keep the terminal window running during this whole process!
./cube
By running the command above, your default web browser will automatically open and bring up the Cube window. From here, look for the “start a new project” button and click it. Then, write “offline apps” in the project box and click “create.”
Find “offline-apps” in the project list and select “Open” to start it in Camicri Cube. Then, follow the step-by-step instructions below to learn how to download apps.
Step 1: Click the search box and type the name of the program you’re trying to install offline on another Ubuntu PC, and press enter to start the search.
Step 2: Look through the search results to find the app. Then, click the “Download” button to grab the app, along with its dependencies. Repeat this step to download as many apps for offline use as you need.
Step 3: Open up the Linux file manager on the PC that downloads the apps and browse to the “cube” folder, followed by “projects.” Then, plug in a USB flash drive or USB hard drive to the Ubuntu PC and copy the “offline-apps” folder to the USB.
After copying over the “offline-apps” folder to a USB device, unplug it from the Ubuntu PC doing the downloading and plug it into the offline PC and move on to the next step in the guide to learn how to install the packages.
Install apps offline
To install the apps that Camicri Cube downloaded, start by plugging in the USB flash drive or USB hard drive to the offline computer. From there, open up the Ubuntu file manager, and copy the “offline-apps” folder to the “Documents” folder. Once everything is copied over, launch a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard and enter the command below to install the apps.
Once the dpkg command above finishes running, all offline Ubuntu applications will be fully installed and ready to use. Be sure to repeat this process as many times as you need to get apps on your offline Ubuntu computers!
Your computer goes to sleep if it’s idle for a certain amount of time. You can also set the system to enter hibernate mode if you prefer it over sleep mode. That said, people do still shut down their systems and if you tend to forget, you can automatically shut it down if it’s been idle for too long. All you need is a scheduled task to handle it. Here’s how to set it up.
A word of caution
A System is idle when there is no user activity and no system processes are active. It does not check for unsaved work on your system. If you happen to have a file open with unsaved work, the shut down is not going to save it first. On that note, some apps can and do prevent system shut down if they’re open with unsaved work. If you have an app like that open on your system, it can interfere with the task.
Shut down on idle
Open the Task Scheduler and click Create Task in the column on the left.
In the Create Task window, enter a name for the task and make the following changes;
Enable ‘Run with highest privileges’
Set the Configure for dropdown to ‘Windows 10’
Move to the Triggers tab. Click New at the bottom to add a new trigger. Use the following settings for the trigger;
Set Begin the task to ‘On a schedule’
Select ‘Daily’ from the schedule options. Set the Start time to 12:00:00 AM. Leave the date as it is.
Enable the task to recur every 1 day.
Enable the ‘Synchronize across time zones’ option
Go to the Actions tab. Click the New button to add a new action and set the following action.
Under Program/Script, enter Shutdown. There is no space between shut and down. It must be one word.
Go to the Conditions tab and make the following changes;
Enable the ‘Start the task only if computer is idle for’ option
In both the time fields, enter the same time. This time should be how long your computer should be idle before it is shut down. You only have preset options here but you can go as high as two hours.
Click Ok, and when your system is idle for more than the set time, it will be shut down. As for apps that may block the shut down, you can find free apps that can quit all running apps on your system or you can create a script that do the same thing. In both cases, you can run the script or the app as an action for the task.
Scroll direction on macOS is set for the system without taking into consideration whether a mouse or a trackpad is being used. You can change the scroll direction for macOS anytime you want from System Preferences but the direction will apply to both the trackpad and the mouse. There is no way to separate the two with just the OS settings. If you want to set a different scroll direction for the mouse and trackpad, you need a free app called Mos.
Different scroll direction for mouse and trackpad
Download and run Mos. It will need special accessibility permission to run. Once it’s running though, it will do so with the option to reverse the scroll direction for the mouse wheel. You don’t need to set it up, and you don’t need to have a mouse connected to your system either. Any time you do connect a mouse though, its wheel will scroll in the opposite direction than that of the trackpad’s scroll gesture.
Mos also has one other, really neat feature. It lets you add exceptions for the scroll direction on a per-app basis. Go to the app’s preferences and select the ‘Exception’ tab. Click the plus button at the bottom and select an application. If you want the scroll direction of the mouse to be reversed in the application, leave it as is. If not, uncheck the Reverse box for the application and the scroll direction will not be reversed.
Finally, you can also manage the scrolling smoothness with Mos. Go to the Advanced tab and tinker with the three sliders there; Step, Speed, and Duration. The Step sets the minimum scroll distance i.e., how ‘far’ or how many ‘lines’ are scrolled. The Speed has to do with smoothness and how ‘fast’ the scrolling appears to be. Duration is for the scroll animation and while it’s purely a cosmetic change, it may effect how fast the scrolling appears.
Mos has features that you’d expect macOS to have by default. If nothing else, there should be a way to set different scroll directions for the mouse and the trackpad.
Mos won’t run at login by default but it has a built-in option that allows you to add it to the login items. It also offers stats on how ‘far’ you’ve scrolled and it lets you set a hotkey that allows you to change the scroll direction. The app is like steroids for an average mouse. If you use a mouse with your MacBook, this app is hard to live without.
Need to disable the trackpad when you connect a mouse? There’s a way to do that as well.
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