Exciting tips

Linux users often use Bluetooth to connect wireless peripherals to their computers (headphones, mice, keyboards, gaming controllers, etc.) Did you know that you can also share files over Bluetooth? It’s true! The Bluetooth protocol is incredibly useful for transferring files, folders, and other data wirelessly.

Enable Bluetooth

On many Linux distributions, the Bluetooth system doesn’t come enabled by default. As a result, you’ll need to do this manually. To enable Bluetooth manually, do the following steps.

Step 1: Run lspci (if your Bluetooth radio is built-in) or lsusb (if it’s a USB dongle). Look through the prompt to see if you can tell if your Linux PC has automatically detected your Bluetooth radio. If it does, this is a good sign.

lspci

or

lsusb

Step 2: Turn on Bluetooth mode on the device you plan on sending files to/from. Make sure it is discoverable and in scanning mode.

Step 3: Follow our in-depth guide on how to enable Bluetooth on Linux.

Step 4: In that same guide that you used to enable Bluetooth on Linux, scroll down and follow the instructions to learn how to pair your Bluetooth device to your Linux PC.

If you are having trouble setting up Bluetooth manually on Linux, consider installing Ubuntu Linux instead. It has excellent Bluetooth support out of the box.

Assuming Bluetooth is working and your device is successfully paired to your Linux PC, move on to the next section of this guide.

Share files via Blueman

Each desktop environment on Linux handles Bluetooth devices in their own way. Even though every Linux desktop has its Bluetooth apps, we highly recommend ignoring them in favor of Blueman. The reason? It’s easier to use, more reliable and integrates with every mainstream Linux desktop environment out there with no trouble.

To install the Blueman application on your Linux PC, open up a terminal window and follow the command-line instructions below that correspond with the Linux OS you use.

Ubuntu

In Ubuntu, you may need to enable the Ubuntu Universe software repository before being able to install the Blueman package. To enable “Universe,” use the following add-apt-repository command.

sudo add-apt-repository universe

With Universe set up, run the update command.

sudo apt update

Finally, install Blueman on Ubuntu.

sudo apt install blueman

Debian

Debian carries the Blueman application in the “Main” software repository. To install it, use the Apt-get command below.

sudo apt-get install blueman

Arch Linux

Arch Linux carries the Blueman app in their “Community” software repository. To install, ensure that “Community” is set up in /etc/pacman.conf. Then, use the Pacman command below to get it working.

sudo pacman -S blueman

Fedora

Fedora has Blueman in both the “Fedora i386” and “Fedora x86_64” software repositories. To install the app on your system, use the following Dnf command.

sudo dnf install blueman

OpenSUSE

On OpenSUSE, the Blueman app is carried in the “OpenSUSE Oss All” software repository. To install it, ensure you have that software repository enabled. Then, use the following Zypper command in a terminal window.

sudo zypper install blueman

With the Blueman application installed, open up the app by pressing Alt + F2 on the keyboard and typing the following command into the launch window.

blueman

Share files over Bluetooth

Inside the Blueman application, look for the Bluetooth device you’d like to share files with and right-click on it with the mouse. Then, look in the right-click menu for “Send a file” and select it with the mouse.

After clicking on the “Send a file” option, a browser window will open on your Linux PC. Using the browser window, locate the file you’d like to share and select “OK” in the menu.

Once you select “OK,” the Blueman application will start the transfer. You must now go to the Bluetooth device receiving the file and accept it. Soon after, Blueman will send out the file.

Other ways to share files on Linux

Sending data over Bluetooth is very useful as most devices support the protocol. Still, if you’ve gone over this tutorial and find that transferring data over the Bluetooth protocol isn’t for you, here are a few file transfer alternatives you can use on Linux.

Alternative 1 – NitroShare

Nitroshare is a useful application for Linux, Mac, and Windows that users can use to send files quickly over a network. When you install Nitroshare and launch it on your computer, anyone else running the app will automatically detect you. From there, it easy to send data with one or two clicks.

To get your hands on Nitroshare, and to learn how to use it, check out this guide. In it, we cover how to install Nitroshare on Linux, how to transfer files, and much more!

Alternative 2 – Transporter

Transporter is another excellent wireless transfer application for Linux. Sadly, it’s not cross-platform like Nitroshare, but still, if you only run Linux, it’s superb. When you open it up, drag a file in, and Transporter will generate a code. You can then give that code to anyone (on your network), and it’ll send out the file with no fuss.

If you’d like to use Transporter to send files, check out our guide on it, as we go over how to install the program and use it to transfer data!

Firefox, the open-source browser that prioritizes user privacy above other things, has been delivering ads on the New Tab page. The ads aren’t crazy intrusive or anything. In fact, they’re just tame banner ads with no animation, sound, or pop-ups. That said, it’s the only popular browser that shows ads and users are not happy. Mozilla has made a statement claiming it was only an experiment but that doesn’t make much difference. The good news is you can disable ads on the New Tab page in Firefox.

Disable ads on New Tab page

You can disable ads on the New Tab page from Firefox’s settings. Open a new tab and click the cog wheel button at the top right of the page.

On the Options page, select Home from the column on the left and scroll down to the Snippets option. Disable the Snippets option and you will no longer see ads on the New Tab page. You don’t need to restart Firefox.

Firefox New Tab page ads

These ‘ads’ have been showing up on the New Tab page in Firefox for a while now. They appeared as helpful snippets suggesting useful Firefox features or additional Mozilla services that users could enable/use to get more out of the browser. The ads didn’t look like ads at the time. They appeared to be an on-boarding experience for new users and a simple way to show existing users what features they were missing out on.

What finally gave them away was when the snippets began to promote services that Mozilla didn’t own or that weren’t integrated with Firefox in any way.

Mozilla, in addition to saying the ads are experimental also said it didn’t receive money in exchange for promoting the services and it’s missing the point. The company could have benefited from paying attention to how users reacted when Microsoft began promoting OneDrive on Windows 10.

Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge do not pass up any opportunity to promote either OneDrive or the browser. In fact, if you visit the Microsoft website from Windows 10 in any browser other than Edge, you will see a banner at the top suggesting you try Edge instead. Microsoft has stuck with promoting only its own apps and services and Windows 10 users never took it well. Mozilla got away with more than Microsoft ever could since it didn’t just develop the browser it was promoting but also the OS it was promoting it on.

Steam is a gaming platform and you might think that security doesn’t matter much on it. After all, what’s someone going to steal? Your in-game achievements? If you buy games on Steam, and everyone does, your billing information not to mention your phone number are two things potential hackers might be interested in. That’s why, if you have one too many failed long in attempts, Steam locks you out. You see the error message “There have been too many login failures from your network in a short time period. Please wait and try again later”.

The problem with this error message is that it doesn’t define how long the ‘short time period’ ought to be. Here’s how you can fix the Steam too many login failures from your network error.

Wait 30 minutes

The ‘short time period’ is 30 minutes long. If you have that time, wait it out and then log in to Steam. The error will disappear though you might still be prompted to enter a CAPTCHA code.

Different Network

The main problem, other than that you forgot your password and made one too many attempts to guess it, is that the attempts all came from one network. Steam is now suspicious of that network and has placed a soft ban on you from using it to sign in. The quick solution is to use a different network to sign in.

Now, no one has a second internet connection available on hand in case Steam places a soft ban on their network so you have two alternatives; a mobile hotpot, or a VPN.

Mobile Hotspot

Everyone has a phone and most, if not all, modern Android phones and all iPhones allow you to create a hotspot. You can connect your PC or laptop to your phone’s hotspot and login to Steam. Use Steam with the hotspot for thirty minutes after which you can switch back to your main connection. This will consume your mobile data so think carefully before you opt for this solution.

VPN

You need Steam to think you’re connecting from a different network than the one you made so many failed attempts from. To do that, consider using a VPN. The VPN will mask your IP and allow you to by-pass the soft ban. If you’re already using a VPN, disconnect it and connect to the internet directly. The end-result will be the same. Once the 30 minute ban expires, you can use Steam the way you normally do i.e., with or without a VPN.

Make sure you choose a good VPN if that’s the route you go with. Some VPNs don’t do a good job at masking your IP while others don’t encrypt traffic. We recommend using ExpressVPN if you’re in the market for a service. It’s fast and reliable, and also as secure as they come. AddictiveTips readers can also get the first three months free if they purchase an annual plan.

Battery charge alerts are pretty useful for monitoring the health of your battery. In cases where you’re dealing with an if-fy battery, or you need to check if your battery is charging too quickly, it helps to know when the battery has reached a full charge. You can use various apps and scripts to get battery full alerts but if you use Chrome, an extension called Battreminder can send those alerts as well.

The advantage of using a browser extension is that it doesn’t matter which OS you’re using. The extension uses your OS’ native notifications system. If you use a Chromebook, chances are high that this will work with it as well.

Battery full alerts

Install Battreminder from the Chrome Web Store. It adds an icon next to the URL bar that will tell you what the current battery percentage is.

Once your battery is fully charged, you will get an alert telling you your battery is full.

The extension doesn’t pester you with notifications. You will get one alert, and it’s up to you to unplug your laptop, or let it remain connected to a power supply. The extension also cannot be programmed to give you alerts when your battery reaches certain charge levels. It’s a one-trick pony though, if you’re using a Chromebook, you will like what it can do.

Needless to say this extension only works so long as you have the Chrome browser open. If you want it to continue working after you’ve closed Chrome, you can enable background apps to run in Chrome. To do so, open Chrome and click the more options button at the top right. Select Settings from the menu that opens. On the Settings screen, scroll to the bottom and expand the Advanced settings.

Under Advanced Settings, scroll down to the System section and enable the “Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed” option. After you’ve enabled this option, you will continue to get full battery alerts via Chrome even if the browser isn’t running. You will also see Chrome as a running process in whichever task manager you use on your desktop. Additionally, Chrome will show a system tray icon to indicate that it’s running in the background. The browser will obviously consume system resources but the impact will be far less than if you had the browser open with multiple tabs, and other extensions actively working.

We don’t advise that you use this extension to gauge whether or not your battery is healthy. It is a battery monitoring tool and nothing more.

The Sony PlayStation 4 controller is an excellent device, and it would make a great controller to play video games on Linux. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to use the PS4 controller on Linux. Let’s get started!

Method 1 – Steam

Valve’s hard work on the Linux version of Steam means that users can enjoy excellent support for third-party video game controllers such as the Sony DualShock 4 (PS4) controller, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Xbox One and more.

The Steam method is the obvious way to go for the PS4 controller support on Linux for several reasons. For starters, it’s possible to configure the Steam client to adopt other controller styles (like the Xbox) and add it to the PS4. But aside from that, Valve offers up a custom controller mapping tool that users can use to map games to the PS4 controller with ease manually.

Install Steam on Linux

To configure the DualShock 4 controller on Linux via Steam the Steam application must first be installed. Open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. From there, follow the installation instructions that correspond with the distribution you use.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu distributes Steam in their official software repositories. To install it, use the Apt package manager to load up Steam.

sudo apt installing steam

Alternatively, Ubuntu users can download the Steam DEB package directly from Steam’s website here.

Debian

The easiest way to install Steam on Linux is to download the standalone DEB package from Steam’s website. The reason downloading is better is that you won’t need to fiddle with your sources file to enable “non-free” packages to install Steam.

To get the latest Steam DEB package, use the wget command below.

Note: you will need to enable 32-bit architecture to use Steam on Debian.

wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steam.deb

With “steam.deb” done downloading, use the dpkg tool to load it up on the system.

sudo dpkg -i steam.deb

Finish up the installation with apt-get install -f.

sudo apt-get install -f

Arch Linux

Steam is in the official Arch Linux software repositories. To install it, use the Pacman package management command below.

sudo pacman -S steam

Fedora

Steam is available to Fedora users through the RPMFusion software repository. To enable these repos, do the following command-line operations.

Note: replace XX in the commands below with the release number of Fedora Linux you use.

sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-XX.noarch.rpm -y

sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-XX.noarch.rpm -y

With the repos enabled, install Steam with Dnf.

sudo dnf install steam -y

OpenSUSE

Use OpenSUSE and need Steam? Head over to the OBS and download the package that best matches your release of the operating system!

Flatpak

Ensure you have the Flatpak runtime enabled. Then, enter the following commands to load up Steam.

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo flatpak install flathub com.valvesoftware.Steam

After installing Steam on your Linux PC, log into your account and open the app.

Configure the PS4 Controller in Steam

Now that the Steam app is installed and open on your Linux PC, plug in your PS4 via USB to your PC or pair it via Bluetooth by pressing Share + the PS button if you prefer.

Once the controller is connected to your Linux PC, go to the Steam app, find the “Steam” menu and click on it. Then, select the “Settings” menu inside to access the Steam settings area.

Inside the Steam settings area, find “Controller” and select it. Then, choose “GENERAL CONTROLLER SETTINGS.”

In the “GENERAL CONTROLLER SETTINGS” area, check the box next to “PlayStation Configuration Support.” Then, scroll down, and you should see “Unregistered PlayStation controller.” Click it and register it to your Steam account.

With the PlayStation 4 controller registered to your Steam account, you’ll now be able to use it to play video games in your Steam library, as well as third-party ones added to Steam through the “Add a Game” feature.

Method 2 – DS4DRV

The Dualshock 4 userspace driver for Linux is an older driver, but it’s confirmed to give users excellent support for the Sony DualShock 4 (PS4) controller on most Linux-based operating systems.

Installing the DS4DRV driver is done through the Python packaging tool, meaning that even Linux distributions that are lesser-known should have no issue installing it. To start the installation, open up a terminal and run pip –help followed by python –version.

Note: you will also need to install “python-setuptools.” More information on that here.

pip --help

python --version

Assuming the “help” function shows that Pip works and you can confirm you have Python 2.7 or higher, use the pip install command to load up the DS4DRV driver onto your Linux PC.

sudo pip install ds4drv

Connect your Ps4 controller

With the DS4DRV driver working, it’s time to connect it to the system to use it on Linux. Plug in your PS4 controller into the USB port on your PC. Alternatively, hold down the Share + PS button to enter it into Bluetooth mode. From there, follow this guide to learn how to pair it to your computer wirelessly.

Once you’ve got your PS4 controller paired to your Linux PC, return to the terminal and run ds4drv.

ds4drv --hidraw

If the command is successful, your DualShock 4 controller should work in any game you start up on the system with no trouble! For more information on how to use DS4DRV, including it’s more advanced functions we didn’t cover, click here.

The way we work is changing. The typical office space has now expanded beyond just four walls and tight-knit teams. Remote work, as as well as remote teams, are growing as technology allows employees to work from anywhere and still be productive, and connected at all times. With a changing work space, the requirements for those spaces and for employees working remotely also change. For one, organisations need a safe, and ethical way to remotely monitor employees’ computers.

The method used to monitor employees must not interfere with daily work and it ought to be able to give an accurate view of an employee’s productivity. Additionally, the methods used shouldn’t be resource hungry so that they can run on moderate to low end systems as well.

How does computer monitoring software work?

Computer monitoring software claims to do many things; monitor productivity, log hours, mark attendance, record screens, monitor web based activity, and more. The question is, how do these apps work and how is it all accomplished?

Internet monitoring software

An PC activity monitor is a complex app but it’s also smart. Take the example of productivity monitoring. Employers can select apps that are used for work related tasks e.g. Slack and they can blacklist apps that aren’t work related e.g. Steam. They can do the same for various domains so that when employees visit social media websites, it’s clear that it isn’t for a work related task and counts towards unproductive time.

Employee tracking software

Computer monitoring software monitors when an employee is active, working, and at their work station. Organisations that do no use computer monitoring software rely on employees logging into chat applications as a sign that they are ‘at work’. Employee monitoring software approaches this differently; not only does it check if an employee is online but also whether or not they’re active or idle. Activity monitoring is not limited to just a few applications but rather extended to an entire system so that, regardless of which application an employee is using, you can tell if they’re actively working or not. It’s a great way to track hours worked and automatically log attendance.

Screen recordings

A PC monitoring application runs a screen recorder in the background. Some apps can take periodic screenshots while others will record videos of screen activity. The recordings and/or screenshots are time stamped allowing organisations to view activity for a given date and time.

Kickidler

If you’re an organisation looking to remotely monitor its employees we recommend using Kickidler. It checks all the right boxes, and has some great features to boot.

Flex timings and attendance

With remote workers, flex timings are often part of the mix but it’s exceptionally difficult to keep track of hours worked and daily attendance when employees are working different hours. If they break the work day down into two distinct portions, it makes it all the more difficult to calculate how many hours have been worked in a day. In the end, this can create problems for both employees who may lose on overtime payments and for employers who need employees to meet minimum daily, weekly, or monthly work hour targets.

Kickidler is great at keeping track of how many hours have been worked even if they’re broken down into smaller chunks throughout the day. It also has an automatic attendance logging system that requires no intervention or verification from employees allowing them to skip these types of smaller tasks and focus on work.

Training and troubleshooting

Kickidler can record screen activity on computers that are being monitored and as such it serves as an excellent on-boarding tool allowing employers to provide training and view, first hand, an employee’s learning and understanding of their tasks. Additionally, because systems are being monitored, companies can provide remote IT help and troubleshoot problems more accurately with the data that’s available. Employees don’t have to be tied down with taking screenshots and providing steps to reproduce any problems they might be experiencing.

Disaster mitigation and relief

Kickidler can be used to log certain keyword related activity e.g., if an employee happens to use the word ‘torrent’ during work hours. In the event a system is infected with a virus, the key logged events, as well as the overall history and activity log allows employers to assess what went wrong, where a virus could have come from, and quickly provide the best and quickest way to remove it. Kickidler itself isn’t an antivirus however by examining the recent activity on a computer, it can help a company’s IT department figure out what sort of infection they’re dealing and give them the information needed to come up with a solution.

Additionally, for employees who are prone to forgetting their logins, or are inclined to follow poor security practices, Kickidler can keep an eye on how sensitive information is being handled and allow organisations to enforce security policies as and when needed.

Security

For companies dealing with highly sensitive data, or proprietary information, Kickidler allows them to keep track of certain activities e.g., which files are accessed and what websites are being visited. If employees are copying or transmitting sensitive information, management can step in and prevent intellectual theft.

Collaboration tool

Kickidler isn’t just a tool that helps management keep track of what remote workers are doing. It can be used to get daily work updates, and communicate them to the rest of the team. Instead of employees individually reporting in on completed tasks, and other employees waiting for updates, management can use Kickidler’s activity tracking features to check how far work has progressed and communicate it on time.

What’s more, for employees that are benefitting from flex timings and aren’t available when an update from them is required, Kickidler’s reports can be used to fill in how far work has progressed.

Legal benefits

When employees are working with sensitive data, and interacting with customers directly, they are responsible for the commitments made by the company to said customers. In the event something goes wrong and customers complain about an employee’s conduct or the service that was provided, the recordings and logs gathered by KickIdler can be used to exonerate them. Additionally, the recordings can be used to figure out what went wrong and train employees how to avoid and/or work with difficult scenarios. Overall, it provides a safety net where false claims cannot be filed and plenty of evidence is available to quickly resolve any such problems.

Cost

Kickidler costs $9/month but it also has 3 and 6 month plans that cost $24 and $30 respectively. It also has annual plans with a one year plan costing $50, a three year plan costing $100, and a lifetime plan costing $170. These prices are for one license however bulk licensing options are also available and are cheaper.

Kickidler has a demo version that allows you to view how the app works on Kickidler computers. You can take it for a spin on your own computer with a 14 day trial version that allows you to check out what the app is capable of before you use it to monitor employees.

Monitoring vs spying

It’s important to make a distinction between monitoring and spying on employees. A monitoring application is installed with the full knowledge and consent of an employee. It is best that employees are made aware of any company policies and requirements regarding monitoring when they are being hired. The best practice is to use monitoring applications on company provided systems instead of asking employees to volunteer their own devices for work use and subsequently install monitoring applications on it.

Why do employers monitor employees?

Employees often view remote monitoring software as a surveillance tool that will be used to penalize them. It is important that organisations looking to remotely monitors employees explain the need for the software. Working together with an understanding of why such a tool is necessary in their line of work will make for a healthier employer-employee relationship.

A pc activity monitor is viewed as something that only has a one-sided benefit that favours management and punishes employees. There is a bit of a stigma that goes without it however, employee do benefit from remote monitoring software. For one, it serves as an excellent appraisal tool where other subjective tools might fail. It also helps provide better training, and is often a good legal safety net for employees when things go wrong and there is little evidence, if any, that an employee did the right thing and was not at fault.

The stigma that remote monitoring software comes with isn’t all baseless. Often, it results in a power trip where people in management positions end up using it to micromanage employees and even prosecute them for every little misstep or perceived misstep. In that vein, it isn’t just employees that need to be on-board with the need for remote monitoring software. Management also needs to understand, and trained if need be, that the purpose of the software is to aid productivity and automate mundane tasks like recording hours worked and not to police employees.

Is it legal to monitor employees computers?

You should also take a look at monitoring, recording, and logging laws in your country when you’re choosing a remote monitoring solution. It may, for example, be legal to track which app e.g. browser, an employee is using but it may be illegal to track which websites they’re visiting or what information (personal logins etc) they’re entering.

Kickidler does have a secret mode that allows it to run silently without employees knowing so you can secretly monitor them if you need to but there may be legal implications that are applied to it nonetheless.

The risk of micromanagement

Kickidler gives extensive insight into how individual employees work and it is only natural that management will want to increase productivity. Kickidler can be used to figure out what works and what are good work practices but at the same time, it comes with the risk of becoming a micromanagement tool.

It’s important that it isn’t used as a tool to police every aspect of work. Screen recordings, for example, shouldn’t be used as a surveillance tool unless gross misconduct is suspected.

Creating a good, strong password is essential if you want to keep your various online accounts safe. Given the state of cyber security, a password isn’t always enough which is why there is two-factor authentication support for most services you use online. That doesn’t mean passwords are useless. A strong password is often a reasonably good defense against minor attacks. If you have trouble thinking of a good password, and you tend to use the one good password you have for everything, consider taking some help from the Chrome password tool.

Chrome Password Tool

It’s common knowledge that Chrome has a password manager but it also has a secret-ish password tool that can help you generate secure passwords. You can’t use it right out of the box. You have to first enable it.

Open Chrome and type the following in the URL bar. Tap enter.

chrome://flags

This will open the Chrome Flags page. Search for Passwords and you ought to be able to find a flag named Password Generation. Open the dropdown next to it, and select the Enabled option. Relaunch Chrome.

Once the tool has been enabled, find a sign up page for a service or app that you want to use. Enter your name, email, etc., on the sign-up form and then click inside the Password field. A dropdown will open with one password suggestion. Click to insert it into the password field. Make sure you note it down somewhere or memorize it. It isn’t user friendly however it is automatically going to be saved to the password manager in Chrome. This is good, or bad depending on how secure you think the password manager is.

The tool only gives you one suggestion so if you need a different one, click outside the password field and then click inside it again. Each time the password field is in focus, Chrome gives you a new password.

If you didn’t note the password down and have used it to sign up to a service or app, you can recover it from the password manager. In Chrome go to the following page and look for the domain name that you signed up on. Click the eye icon to unhide the password. If your system is password protected (on an OS level) you will need to enter your account password to view the passwords stored in Chrome.

chrome://settings/passwords

If you don’t like using the Chrome password manager, there are quite a few alternative options available and Mac users can always use Keychains.

Windows 10 has quite a few accessibility features, one of which allows you to improve the visibility of the mouse cursor. Unfortunately, these options have been rigid for all of Windows 10’s lifespan. With Windows 10 1903, that’s changed. You can now freely customize the cursor on Windows 10. You can change its size to however big or small you want it to be, and you can set it to any color of your choice.

Customize the cursor

To customize the cursor on Windows 10, open the Settings app and go to the Ease of Access group of settings. Select the Cursor & pointer tab and you will see a new pointer size slider. This slider lets you freely change the size of the cursor. If you play with the slider, you’ll see that the cursor can get quite bit. In screenshots though, the cursor appears at its smallest size.

To change the color of the cursor, click the little color wheel and cursor button. You will see a few color presets appear and these will all be highlight colors as shown in the screenshot below.

Select any one of them and the color of the cursor will change. If the colors don’t work for you, click the ‘Pick a custom pointer color’ button. You will see a full color spectrum where you can pick a color for the cursor.

Again, the color of the cursor won’t be captured in screenshots. When you select a color for the cursor, it does not retain it’s context aware color changing feature which only works when the cursor is black/white and moving on a black/white background. The cursor will still have a black outline and the bigger the cursor is, the outline will be somewhat thicker.

While this is still an accessibility feature, there’s no denying that you can use it as part of your desktop theme. The cursor color won’t save with a desktop theme but getting it to match the accent color on Windows 10 is going to be really easy.

As with any OS level customization feature, it’s better than anything a third-party app would add. It will not consume an unusual amount of system resources. If you’re using it to customize your system, it’s up to you to make it look good. If you’ve had problems working with the default cursor options, you’ll find that the new feature is very accommodating. Microsoft has shown foresight by offering presets that are easy to see.

The Photos app can import photos from various types of devices. This includes, but is not limited to, phones, cameras, and external drives. In fact, if you connect any of these devices, importing photos is likely to be listed as one of the default actions to be performed each time the device is connected. That said, sometimes you get the message ‘Trouble connecting’ when importing in Photos. Here are a few things you can try to fix it.

The fixes will depend on the type of device that you’re importing photos from and in some cases, the steps will be generic. If these fixes don’t work for you and you’re not particularly invested in the Photos app, there are quite a few alternatives that you can try.

Check permissions and security

Devices such as phones and drives have security that prevents unauthorized access. On phones, you may have to unlock the device and on storage devices, you may  have to grant special read/write permission to the drive or to the folder you want to import photos from.

If you’re trying to import photos from a phone, unlock it before you connect it to your PC. If the device is a storage device, check its permissions and unlock access to it. Close and open the Photos app again and then try importing it.

If you’re trying to import photos directly from a camera, it is possible that you need to change a setting on it first. Some cameras cannot export photos directly and their storage card needs to be removed and inserted into a card reader to get the photos out of it. In other cases, cards sometimes need to be unlocked.

Check connecting cable

Regardless what type of device you’re importing photos from, you will have to connect it using some sort of cable. If the cable is damaged in any way, it may prevent Photos from communicating with and accessing the data. It’s not enough that the device is just detected. It won’t guarantee that the data from it can be read. Make sure you’re using a good quality cable and try a different one if you can.

Check drivers

Although most devices that you can import photos from are generally plug & play, it is possible that you need a driver to connect to it or special software. This may most likely be true in case of cameras and some rare cases, phones as well. Install any software that is recommended for your device. Generally speaking, if it’s a driver problem, you won’t be able to view the photos from File Explorer either.

Change USB ports

Any device that you connect to your PC, you likely do it via a USB port. It’s possible that the port isn’t working right. It might be able to charge a device, and the device may be detected but there is still no guarantee that it is working correctly. Change USB ports and avoid using USB hubs or extenders to connect to your PC.

Restart everything

Try restarting Windows and also quitting and running the app again. Also, if the import option from Photos doesn’t work, connect the device and from the list of actions that pops up, select Import. It might do the job.

Many people use email with a desktop email client. This is despite the fact that most email services have a more or less functioning web interface that can be used to send and receive email. One major reason for using desktop email clients is that they often have more features. You don’t have to rely on the email service to provide a certain feature e.g. filters, if you use Outlook which provides them by default. Additionally, desktop email clients can also deliver alerts for new messages straight to your desktop. If your primary reason for using a desktop client is alerts, and you use Gmail, you can get desktop alerts for Gmail messages by enabling a little setting.

Desktop alerts for Gmail messages

Open Gmail and click the cog wheel button under your profile picture at the top right. From the menu that opens, select Settings.

Scroll through the settings on the General tab and you will see a section called ‘Desktop Notifications’. Select the ‘New Mail notifications on’ option, and scroll to the end to save the new setting.

This is one part of setting up alerts for Gmail messages. The second is to allow the website to show you notifications via your browser and then to allow your browser to show you desktop notifications via your OS’ built-in notifications system.

To enable notification for the Gmail website, go to the site settings in your browser. Allow Gmail to show notifications. Next, allow your browser, whichever you use, to show notifications.

On Windows 10, you can allow a browser to show notifications from the Settings app. Open the Settings app and go to the System group of settings. Select the Notifications & actions tab. Scroll through the list of installed apps and when you find your browser, allow it to show you notifications.

As far as customizing notifications is concerned, you don’t have a lot of options when you use this method to get them. You’re restricted to using the default notification settings that your OS has to offer and you will find that they pale in comparison to what desktop email clients have to offer.

It’s obvious why users may prefer to use a desktop email client but in a pinch, or when you don’t want to configure your Gmail account to the same email client that you use for work, this is a neat way to get desktop alerts for Gmail messages.