Backing Up Your Microsoft Outlook Emails Made Simple | Dramel Notes

For a lot of people, archiving and backing up old emails seems complicated and insurmountable, but it really doesn’t have to be very complicated, especially if you’re an Outlook user.

Microsoft Outlook stores emails to a data file called either a PST or OST file. PST stands for Personal Storage Table, and OST stands for Offline Storage Table. In both cases, these files contain all of the emails you’ve sent or received from the accounts loaded into your Outlook client.

Archiving and backing up emails is simply a matter of setting up Outlook to archive old emails to a special file, and then setting up a schedule to archive those files to some safe location for long-term storage. In this article you’ll see just how simple this process is.

Using Outlook Exclusively

You could certainly go your entire life just using online email clients like Gmail and Yahoo, and never use a desktop email client at all. However, if you’re a very busy person who doesn’t have a lot of time to clean up those online accounts, it won’t take very long for your Inbox to contain thousands of emails.

The beauty of a client like Outlook is that you can offload those online accounts by loading all of the emails to your Outlook client. Here are the benefits of doing this:

• If you never open your Outlook client, emails remain in your online account, still accessible from your mobile device.
• When you open emails with Outlook, the email is downloaded and stored in the local data file.
• Once the emails are in Outlook, you can use Outlook’s automated features to archive important emails.

This can free up your online accounts like Google and Yahoo, preventing you from hitting data storage limits and potentially having to pay for extra storage.

You can add these accounts to your Microsoft Outlook client by clicking on File > Account Settings, then click Account Settings option that drops down underneath it.

On the E-mail tab, you can add as many email accounts as you like, so long as you know all of the POP3 or IMAP settings for the account (or the Exchange server). Setting all that up in Outlook is outside the scope of this article, but Brad recently covered how you can set up your Outlook client to be more effective with emails.

Create Automated Email Archives

Assuming you’ve got several of your email accounts feeding emails into your Outlook client, your next step is to make sure that you archive older files.

In this example, I’m going to archive all of my MakeUseOf emails that are more than a year old. To do this, you create the archive file where you want to store those emails, by going to File > Account Settings like you did above, but this time click on the Data Files tab.

Click on Add… and name your new data file where you’ll store your old archived emails.

If you want to secure those old emails so no one can come snooping around and open the file, go ahead and click the checkbox to include password protection. This is good practice, especially if those emails contain business data, or personal information about people you know.

There are two ways to set up AutoArchive for old emails. The first way is to go to File > Cleanup Tools > Archive…

Here you can select the inbox where you want to archive emails, define the age beyond which you want to archive, and then browse to the archive data file you just created in the step above.

The second approach is to just right-click on the Inbox right inside the Outlook client, click on Properties, and go to the AutoArchive tab.

In this windows, you can also configure when to archive the emails in the Inbox by giving it a threshold in months. Select Move old items to… and browse to the data file you created in the step above.

Archiving a Newly Imported Account

The first thing anyone is going to do after reading the above is to immediately install Outlook, add all of their favorite accounts to the client, and import thousands upon thousands of emails that have built up in those online accounts over time.

Great! Except… it won’t work.

Here’s the thing: AutoArchive is meant for all emails you receive from the moment you set up AutoArchive onwards. This is because Outlook uses the “modify” date of the email. And guess what happens when you import those 10,000+ emails from your online accounts. You guessed it, every single email gets a “modified” date of today.

So what do you do about those emails? Well, you can move them into the archive data file manually.

Just go to the Inbox where you have all of those old emails you want to archive, highlight all of them, and then simply click and drag them over into the archive that you created for them.

It could take a very long time, depending on how many emails you’re trying to archive. But you’ll see a status window like the one below, so just go get a cup of coffee and give it some time.

Manage Your Archives

Once you’re done archiving those emails, there are several options that you have available, depending on how you want to organize your email archives.

• Option 1: When you name archive files, give them the name of the past year. At the end of every year, close the archive (see below), and create a new archive file.
• Option 2: Create a single archive file, set up AutoArchive to keep archiving anything older than 6 months to that archive, and then forget about it.

There are pros and cons to each approach. The second option is great for when you archive only few emails as you can simply set and forget. It will come back to haunt you, however, if you run out of storage space for the archive file. With the first option, you have to remember every year to right click on the Archive file in your Outlook client, and close the archive.

Then you can move this PST file to some other location for safekeeping. The default location of Outlook’s data files is in the /Documents/Outlook Files/ folder.

You could either move the closed archive file to /Documents/Outlook Files/2014 Archives/ — or, better yet, copy those old archived emails to some off-site cloud storage location like your Dropbox or Google Drive account. This is an even better option because in the case of a fire (or if your PC hard drive otherwise gets destroyed), you haven’t lost those old emails.

Should you ever need to recall those data files filled with archived emails, just copy them back into the /Documents/Outlook Files/ directory, go into Outlook, and in the same Data Files tab where you created the data files, you can use the Add.. button to browse to that stored archive file and add it back into your Outlook client, where you can browse through all of your old emails again.

Only a Backed Up Email Is a Safe Email

The key here is to get your online accounts under control, and Outlook can help. The first phase is connect your Outlook client to those online accounts. The next phase is to manually copy all of those old emails you’ve been squirreling away into an archive file, and storing that file some place safe.

The last and final phase is to configure AutoArchive in your Outlook client to keep your inbox clean and your client operating well, by automatically archiving those older emails to a different data file. Working off a smaller data file keeps your inbox fast and efficient.

Have you ever used Outlook as your main email client? Now that you know how easily it can help you back up your most important, saved emails, will you consider giving it a go? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!

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9 Deals You’ll Want To Spend Those Amazon Gift Cards On | Dramel Notes

It’s that time of year! Christmas is officially here, and that means it’s time for all of us to receive lots of Amazon gift cards from friends and loved ones. Let’s all pick up some cool new toys and gadgets for ourselves!

But even though it’s a gift card, it doesn’t mean you want to overpay. That’s why we’ve found some awesome deals from Amazon for you today. Whether you want video games, cameras, TVs, headphones, or whatever else, we’ve found great deals for you.

Destiny: The Taken King – Legendary Edition ($32.98, 45% Off)

The amount of game you get for $33 with Destiny is absurd. You could easily spend hundreds of hours shooting stuff in Bungie’s world. You really can’t get a much better value than that as far as a game goes. If you were to buy the base Destiny game and all of the expansions, it would cost over $100! It’s a perfect way to spend those Amazon gift cards we all rack up this time of year.

Sid Meier’s Civilization V: The Complete Edition ($12.49, 75% Off)

If you’re a PC gamer, Amazon has a digital copy of Civ V with the expansions for just $12.49. This is another game with infinite replay value, so it really is a fantastic value. If you like to play a slower, more strategic game, Civ V is right up your alley.

Doctor Who: Christmas Specials Giftset with Tardis Speakers ($69.99, 37% Off)

Send Christmas on its way with a collection of Doctor Who Christmas Specials on Blu-ray. If you’re a fan of the BBC’s long-running show, this is a must own part of your collection!

Dell 19.5″ LED-Lit Monitor ($79.00, 34% Off)

Looking for something a little more practical to spend that Amazon money on? How about a new LED computer monitor? Whether you need a second display, or you’re looking to replace one, $80 for a Dell is a great price. This particular monitor has a 4-star rating, so you know it’s quite good.

Skullcandy Grind Headphone with Mic ($32.99, 45% Off)

Did you get a new smartphone for Christmas? You should probably pick up a better pair of headphones for it than the stock ones that come in the box. These Skullcandy phones are solid, with a 4.5-star rating on Amazon. This deal is available today only, so don’t wait!

Skullcandy Air Raid Bluetooth Portable Speaker ($97.90, 35% Off)

If you prefer to play your music so everyone can hear, and you want a speaker that can take a beating and handle a little water, check out this one. It’s 35% off today only.

Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 ($59.99, 40% Off)

Do you need a webcam to chat with friends? Do you want to be the next big Twitch sensation? Whatever your reason, Logitech is regarded as one of the best webcam makers on the market, and the C920 is one of it’s better models. It’s normally $100, but you can snag it for $59.99 right now!

Canon EOS Rebel T5 Digital SLR Camera with 2 Lenses ($449.00, 40% Off)

If you had some really generous friends and loved ones who hooked you up with lots of Amazon gift cards, than perhaps it’s finally time to pick up that DSLR you’ve always wanted! This Canon T5 comes with 18-55mm IS II and EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III lenses, so it’s versatile enough to do whatever you need it to. It has everything you need to start mastering photography, and it’s a very reasonable price.

Samsung 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV ($997.99, 38% Off)

This is an awesome TV, and while most people won’t get enough gift cards to cover a big-screen, they’ll certainly help! It’s 55-inches, with a 4K resolution, so it’s ready for the future. And it’s a great price, which is always nice.

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10 Online Collaboration Tools Perfect for Visual Jobs | Dramel Notes

“Visual collaboration”. Sounds like serious business, doesn’t it?

But it doesn’t have to be.

Online collaboration tools are no longer reserved for programmers and designers. As more and more people choose to work from home, apps catering to all types of users are now in the spotlight. Some of them don’t even require sign-up, so you and your peers can jump into visual collaboration immediately — and for free.

You can participate in collaborative writing activities, plan a vacation together, collect ideas for a birthday party, or work on a school project. Certain tools are more suited for planning and brainstorming than others, which is why we’ve collected a sampling of websites for various purposes. Take a look at our suggestions, pick your favorites, and start collaborating!

Netboard.me (Free)

Platforms: Web, Chrome, Firefox

Netboard is much like your personal Pinterest, but with a twist: you can make it into anything you want. Use it as a website, turn it into a portfolio, or write blog posts—Netboard puts no limits on your creativity. Unlimited is also the amount of boards you can create.

Each board can have a different layout, and you can organize your posts into tabs. New content is added either by inserting links or by uploading local files. It’s also possible to import videos from a number of services (YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Twitch…) including Google Docs, and create new posts via browser extensions.

You’ll need to register to use Netboard, but there’s a demo page you can play with. Once you have an account, you can modify the theme (change colors and fonts), follow other users, and upvote their boards.

How you can collaborate?

Your boards can be private or public, and the latter can be shared with anyone by simply linking to it. However, if you want other users to modify and add content to your boards, you have to give them co-authoring access. Netboard.me is best suited for activities that require content curation and collection, such as gathering visual inspiration for a wedding or compiling research sources.

You might also like: Marqueed (our Marqueed review)

Design Drop (Free)

Platforms: Web

Design Drop is drop-dead simple, and its purpose is to help you get feedback on visual content, whether it’s photography, sketches, or website mockups. You can try out Design Drop before creating a profile. Currently it accepts PNG and JPG files up to 20 MB in size.

How you can collaborate?

Upload a file, then share the link or send an email invitation to your colleagues. They will be able to annotate your work, draw directly on the uploaded image(s), and write comments which will appear in the sidebar. The ability to comment on selected parts of an image makes Design Drop perfect for building website designs together, as everyone can quickly chime in with their ideas.

You might also like: Notism.io

Ziteboard (Free, Pro $12 per user/month)

Platforms: Web, Chrome

Ziteboard works on the principle of a shared whiteboard. Although it requires an account, you can test Ziteboard before you sign up. The free version lets you create three boards, and you can only use three colors to emphasize your content. If you want to highlight text, fill shapes with more than three colors, create unlimited boards, and get rid of Ziteboard branding, you’ll have to pay $12 per user per month.

Still, the free version should be enough for a small team, especially if you don’t need multiple boards at once. A cool thing about Ziteboard is that it can recognize the shape you’re trying to draw, so if your hands are shaky, it will “autocomplete” circles and squares for you. Apart from sketching, you can use it to draw over photos or type textual comments on the board.

How you can collaborate?

Create a board and choose the “Publish to Web” option to get a link to share with your teammates. You can either give them read-only access, or if you want them to participate in brainstorming, choose the “Live Teamwork” option. Ziteboard is great for explaining concepts and online tutoring, and you can also use it to draw mind maps and diagrams.

You might also like: Realtimeboard (Our Realtimeboard review)

Flockmod (Free)

Platforms: Web, Windows

Simply put, Flockmod is an online collaborative drawing app. There’s a Windows-only desktop version, but it’s more convenient to run it in the browser, especially if you plan to work with Linux or OS X users. Flockmod doesn’t require an account, but you should create one if you want to register a permanent URL for your drawing board.

These boards are officially called “rooms” on Flockmod, and each room comes furnished with a drop-down chat area and a bunch of drawing tools. From layers, text, and various shapes to color management and brushes, Flockmod has it all. If you’ve ever used an online photo editing tool, you’ll be instantly familiar with Flockmod.

How you can collaborate?

Create a room and give the link to your friends. When they join Flockmod, their names will show up in the user list. You can interact via chat, save finished drawings, and share them on social media. The beauty of Flockmod is that you can use it for many different things: as a whiteboard, for brainstorming, or just to doodle silly comics together. The chat feature makes it particularly practical for exchanging feedback and ideas in real-time.

You might also like: WhiteboardFox

MindSky (Free)

Platforms: Web, Chrome, Android

Although you can use MindSky in many different ways (for example, as a blog or a website), its main goal is to be a free Evernote alternative of sorts. You use it to collect various items—articles and snippets from the Web, to-do lists, reminders, sketches, notes, YouTube videos, audio files—that you can later organize into pages.

However, MindSky is best used as a mind-mapping tool thanks to its free-form interface that lets you rearrange items in any way you please. Your notes can be encrypted and geotagged, and there’s also a general tagging system in place to make categorization and searching easier.

How you can collaborate?

Sign up and add some items to your MindSky. The people you collaborate with also have to create accounts, and you can give them read-only or full editing access. As I already mentioned, MindSky is fantastic for mind maps, but you can use it to visually plan group projects, share tasks, and collect online resources that you can annotate together.

You might also like: Mindmeister (featured on MUO)

Codesign (Free, Pro $15 or $25/month)

Platforms: Web

Codesign is a time-saver with a simple yet attractive interface. The premise is simple, too — you share a screenshot, a mockup, or any visual content you’re working on, and your peers comment on it by clicking and annotating particular parts of the image. Their suggestions can be turned into tasks, which you can tick off to mark conversation threads as complete. The images you upload are organized into folders, and each folder can have a custom name and a few descriptive tags.

The free plan allows only one active folder; if you want five, purchase the Team upgrade for $15 per month, or the Studio plan for $25 that gives you ten active folders.

How you can collaborate?

Get an account (or log in with your Google, Facebook, or Github credentials). Create folders and upload images, then generate links for your coworkers. If you want them to edit folders and add their own images, give them full access; otherwise they’ll only be able to participate in discussions.

Codesign is suitable for quick, precise visual feedback on anything you’re working on. Screenshot your resume, upload a floor plan, or share several versions of a logo design. Codesign is also great for getting feedback from clients, as they can clearly point out which elements of your product they like or dislike.

You might also like: Coggle.it

MapMe (Free)

Platforms: Web

You’ve found tools for creating mind maps, but what about mapping the real world? This is where MapMe steps in. You can use it to mark important and interesting places around the Earth with custom icons, colors, and tags. Places can be categorized, and each one has its own page where you can write more information and details. Of course, you can make and manage multiple maps, embed them on other websites, and even add your branding and logos to every map.

How you can collaborate?

Create an account and start building your first map. Make sure to enable “Crowdsourcing” and “Tag Suggestions” options to let other users add information to the map. All changes have to be approved by you. You can also update others via email about the latest changes to your maps. MapMe shines in activities like vacation planning or moving to a new city, but it’s also useful for anyone working in travel and tourism-related industries. It can even be used as a teaching tool.

You might also like: Wikia Maps

Conjure.io (Free while in beta)

Platforms: Web

Conjure could be described as a lightweight alternative to Pixelapse and similar tools. The focus is on the feedback and the ability to track changes to your files, which is why version control and activity feed are among the strongest features of Conjure.

Apart from popular image file formats (JPG, PNG, GIF, PSD, EPS, SVG…), Conjure also supports Word documents, presentations and PDF files. You can organize files into groups, edit them in bulk, and download everything at once thanks to Archive and Export options.

How you can collaborate?

Register an account and upload materials for your first project. You can invite others via email and give them guest access. They can leave feedback on your projects by directly selecting parts of a file and commenting on them. However, if you want them to upload files and manage projects, you’ll have to add them as users, which will cost you $10 per user per month once Conjure is out of the beta stage.

This practical app is great for collaborating on web design and development, or for any other creative process that requires quick decisions on file modifications and choosing between multiple file versions.

You might also like: Dropmark (our Dropmark review)

Feedbag.io (Free)

Platforms: Web

Feedbag is similar to Conjure, but it’s even more lightweight; you could say it’s minimalist. This is good news for users who don’t want to spend too much time learning to use a new tool. Simply upload files in currently supported formats (JPG, GIF, PDF, PNG, PSD, AI), sort them by drag-and-dropping, and share the link with your friends. You can check out the demo to see what it looks like.

Feedbag will keep your uploaded files for 28 days and warn you about their impending deletion after 21 days. Obviously, this makes Feedbag unsuitable for big, long-term projects, but it’s enough if you want some room redecoration feedback from your friends.

How you can collaborate?

Upload files to Feedbag and share the link with your collaborators. They can leave feedback by clicking on any part of the image and typing their comments. An email address is required so that Feedbag can notify the participants about new comments. Feedbag is best for temporary, on-the-fly activities like getting a last-minute review of a cover letter, but you can also use it for spontaneous brainstorming, app and website mockups, or when you need help deciding which Instagram filter to use for that selfie.

You might also like: ProofMini

Stormboard (Free, Pro $5 or $10 per user/month)

Platforms: Web

If you combined several tools from this list, you’d get Stormboard. It’s a versatile app that facilitates constructive brainstorming sessions. Your ideas can be organized into Storms and presented as sticky notes, sketches, images, or even videos. Other users can comment and vote on them, draw directly on top of uploaded images, and contribute their own ideas. The free version lets you create unlimited Storms, but only with up to five users per Storm.

How you can collaborate?

After creating an account and your first Storm, you have to invite others, and they will need to register, too. Your Storms will only be visible to invited users, and they will be notified of changes via email. Stormboard is suitable for group planning, whether it’s an office Christmas party or the launch of a new app.

Newsrooms and bloggers can also use it to discuss article ideas and pitches. However, it’s quite limited by the amount of people you can invite in the free version, so it might not be the best solution for large teams and companies.

You might also like: Symphonical (Our Symphonical review)

Visual Collaboration Is for Everyone

As you’ve seen, visual collaboration isn’t just strictly business. Most tools on this list are simple enough for your parents to understand, so you can use them to plan family events and discuss holiday ideas, especially if you live far away from them. Explaining things visually is much easier (and probably cheaper) than endless phone conversations and email chains that veer off-topic.

Of course, there are plenty more tools for visual collaboration, and we’d like to hear about them from you.

What do you use to share your ideas and get feedback? Have you used any tools from this list, and did you like them? Let us know in the comments.

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DuckDuckGo Grew by 70% Throughout the Year of 2015 by @mattsouthern | Dramel Notes

DuckDuckGo, the search engine whose selling point is the fact that it doesn’t track users, has grown by a considerable amount year over year.

The niche search engine boasts a growth of 70% throughout the year of 2015, despite the fact that it hasn’t nearly seen the adoption rate of more mainstream search engines.

According to the company’s own traffic stats, which it makes available publicly, 3.25 billion searches were entered into DuckDuckGo this year.

That marks a 74% increase compared to the same period of last year. DuckDuckGo reached a new record high on December 14th when it received over 12 million queries in a single day.

Of course, none of this looks impressive compared to the hundreds of billions of searches Google handles in a single month. Although for a startup search engine it’s an accomplishment that it has been able to somewhat compete with the other search engines, and actually see continuous growth.

According to a report in Quartz, DuckDuckGo’s CEO Gabriel Weinberg credits the growth to new partnerships with Apple and Mozilla, as well as word of mouth. Weinberg also points to the fact that Americans are becoming more concerned about search engines tracking user data.

The problem with DuckDuckGo, as its CEO also points out, is that it has a product most people don’t even know exists. Those who don’t want search engines to track their data may have no idea there’s an alternative out there.

Although there’s only so many times the company can lean on that excuse without taking action. If it wants to grow, it needs to launch a serious campaign built around education and awareness. It can’t rely on word of mouth alone.

Will be interesting to see, in 2016, if the company builds on this momentum and attempts to get its brand out there in front of more people.

Featured Image Credit: mtkang / Shutterstock.com

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How Credit Card Fraud Works, And How To Stay Safe | Dramel Notes

If you’re part of my generation, you might have had to convince your parents or grandparents at some point that using their credit card online is safe. “It doesn’t feel safe,” they say, but you tell them that’s the way everyone shops all the time, and their credit card information is totally safe.

But you’re wrong. Credit card numbers do get stolen, and credit card fraud does happen, both online and offline. But how does it happen? How does a thief get your card number? Why don’t verification systems prevent these problems? And what can you do to keep your own cards safe? Let’s take a look at credit card fraud and find out how you can protect yourself.

Getting Your Card Number

Obviously, the first thing that needs to happen for credit card fraud to take place is someone else getting your credit card number. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, and they range from the very basic, to the more technologically complex.

Phishing, for example, is an old strategy that only requires a thief to be a smooth talker. They’ll get in touch with you via phone, email, post, or some other way, usually posing as someone from your credit card issuer, and talk to you into giving them your credit card information. It sounds like something you’d be able to spot right away, but some phishers are really good at what they do—this is very similar to the tactic that was used in the British phone hacking scandal a couple years ago.

Another way in which thieves could come to have your 16-digit credit card number is through online data breaches like those suffered by Target, Home Depot, the Playstation Network, and a whole list of others in recent years. The numbers stolen from those sites often end up on “carding” shops, where people go to buy stolen credit card numbers for use online. According to Brian Krebs, the card numbers sold on Rescator, one of the biggest card-buying sites, go for a median price of about $27 per card. This makes it easy for thieves to buy hundreds of cards at a time, potentially including yours.

It’s not always a merchant or a bank that’s compromised, though; sometimes it’s your own computer. If a hacker manages to get a keylogger or another type of malware installed on your computer, they could easily nab your credit card information when you use it for online shopping. Because most people don’t do enough to protect their computers from malware, this is a serious threat.

Your card itself can also be the target for card thieves. With the increase in contactless payment credit cards, radio frequency identification (RFID) scanners have become a more popular method to steal credit card information; all a thief needs to do is get a scanning device in close range to your card, and they’ll have all the information they need.

This same strategy can be used if your phone uses near-field communication (NFC) to communicate with points of sale to share your credit card information—Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Visa PayWave, and similar apps use this technology when you pay with them. If an NFC reader is compromised or tampered with, it could be giving your credit card information to a criminal.

A similar method called “skimming” requires a thief to have a physical scanner that reads the information from your credit card. These devices are surprisingly easy to get (you can get a basic reader for $13 on Amazon), and thieves can be rather creative in using them to tamper with ATMs, card readers at businesses, and other places where your card is swiped on a regular basis. ATM fraud is surprisingly common; check out Dan Price’s awesome article on ATM fraud to see just how much of it happens every day.

And, of course, there’s the most time-tested, old-fashioned way: just stealing the card. A forgotten wallet or purse, a dropped card, an unlocked car door, or any number of things, can make your card easy for a thief to grab. Sometimes they’ll just write down your information—the number of waiters caught writing down card numbers while running customers’ cards is larger than you might expect.

Using Your Credit Card

Of course, once a thief has your credit card, the hardest part is done. Now all they need to do is use it (or sell it). Banks want you to think that your credit card transactions are very secure, but a quick trip to the store makes it clear that anyone with your card could use it wherever they want. I live in the US, where not all cards have EMV chips yet, and I haven’t had my signature checked against my card or driver’s license in a long time.

Contactless payments with cards don’t require PINs or signatures, so they’re perfect for credit card thieves (even though the limits for contactless payments are rather small, they add up quickly). Online payments don’t require PINs or signatures ether, so going on an Amazon shopping spree with a stolen card is remarkably easy.

And, as I mentioned, these card numbers can be sold online. Rescator is one of many sites that sell this information—most of these sites are on the dark web, where all sorts of identifying information can be bought, but some are easy to get to from any browser. By staying hidden, using servers based in other countries, and making it difficult for law enforcement to look for patterns in stolen cards, these sites stay untouchable.

How to Protect Yourself from Credit Card Fraud

As you can see from the list above, there are a lot of different ways that fraudsters can obtain and use your credit card information—it might seem like it’s impossible to protect yourself. But by following a few simple guidelines, you can significantly decrease the chances that you’ll fall victim to credit card fraud.

First, don’t share your card information over the phone or in an email. Most credit card companies, banks, and stores won’t ask for your credit card information via email, so an email asking for this information should be a clear sign that you’re being scammed. If you need to share your information over the phone, be sure that no one is around to overhear you.

Second, pay attention to online security news; if a retailer or a bank that might have your credit card information gets hacked, call your bank, tell them what happened, and ask for a new card. You could wait to see if you get any suspicious charges on your account before alerting your bank, but it’s up to you whether or not you want to take that chance before starting the process.

Third, if your card is RFID-equipped, consider getting an RFID-blocking wallet so your card is protected while it’s in your pocket. By blocking RFID signals, the wallet prevents any device from reading the information on your card until you take it out to use it.

Fourth, be on the lookout for any card-scanning device that looks like it’s been tampered with. ATMs, pay-at-the-pump gas stations, small stores and restaurants, and many other places can be targeted by skimmers. If something looks suspicious, use another method to pay. Make cash withdrawals from within your bank, pay at the counter when you buy gas, and don’t let your card out of your sight.

Finally, make sure to monitor your credit card statements, bank statements, and credit reports on a regular basis. The earlier you catch a potentially fraudulent transaction, the better the chances that you’ll be able to prevent further trouble. You can get a credit report free every year from annualcreditreport.com, but you should make sure to check your online accounts much more frequently than that to see if anything suspicious is going on.

Your Credit Card Fraud Stories

Now that you know how credit card fraud happens and what you can do to protect yourself, we want to hear your stories of credit card fraud. Have you ever had a card stolen? Do you know how the thief got the information? What tipped you off to the fact that your card had been compromised? And what did you do about it? Share your stories below so we can all learn from them!

Image credits: steal a credit card by Andrea Danti via Shutterstock, wk1003mike via Shutterstock.com, LDprod via Shutterstock.com, A. and I. Kruk via Shutterstock.com, India Picture via Shutterstock.com, Khakimullin Aleksandr via Shutterstock.com.

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What Are The Chances That A Machine Takes Your Job? | Dramel Notes

One of the greatest fears as technology becomes more and more impressive is machines moving in and taking all the jobs that are currently done by humans. A machine can work 24 hours a day, and after an initial investment, doesn’t require a weekly paycheck.

Is your job safe, or are the machines coming to take it? Take a look at the inforgraphic below for a fascinating look at the future of the workplace as the machines rise up.

Via PokerStars.uk

Click To Enlarge

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Think Before You Sign – Not All Job Offers Are Good | Dramel Notes

When you go to an interview for a job, and the potential employer offers you a job, it’s easy to get excited. You’ve been looking for a job and you just found one! But, the thing is, just because you received an offer doesn’t mean it’s the right job for you!

Sometimes, you need to take a big step back and really think about whether the job is actually worth taking. Not all jobs are created equal, and sometimes, it’s better to be patient and wait for the right one to come along.

Check out the infographic below for signs that you should not take a job.

Via ApprovedIndex

Click To Enlarge

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How to Stop Windows 10 From Asking You For Feedback | Dramel Notes

Windows 10 doesn’t just automatically collect information about your computer usage. It does do that, but it may also pop up from time to time and ask for feedback. Here’s how to disable any Windows Feedback pop-up notifications you may see.

This information is used to improve Windows 10 — in theory. As of Windows 10’s “November Update,” the Windows Feedback application is installed by default on all Windows 10 PCs. Previously, it was only installed by default on Insider builds of Windows 10.

Tell Windows 10 to Ask For Feedback Less Often

You can change the frequency of how often Windows 10 requests feedback from the Settings app. To open it, click or tap the Start button and then select “Settings”.

Click or tap the “Privacy” icon in the Settings app.

Select “Feedback & diagnostics” in the sidebar here. If you don’t see the option, you’ll need to scroll down in the sidebar until you do.

The “Windows should ask for my feedback” option under “Feedback frequency” controls how often Windows 10 asks for feedback. By default, it’s set to “Automatically (Recommended)”. You can also set it to “Always”, “Once a day”, or “Once a week”.

Select “Never” and Windows 10 shouldn’t ask you to provide feedback anymore.

Disable the Windows Feedback Notifications

This part shouldn’t be necessary if you’ve told Windows 10 not to ask you for feedback above. But, if you’re still seeing notifications asking you for feedback, you can block them from appearing.

Open the Settings app from the Start menu or Start screen and select the “System” icon.

Select “Notifications & actions” in the sidebar.

Scroll down to the bottom of the Notifications & actions pane. You’ll see the “Windows Feedback” app under “Show notifications from these apps” if it’s showed you notifications.

Set notifications for the Windows Feedback app to “Off” and they won’t appear as pop-ups or in the action center any longer.

This is the same method you can use to disable notifications for other noisy applications, like the frequent “Get Office” notifications that encourage you to subscribe to Office 365 and download the latest version of Microsoft Office.

Launch the Windows Feedback App to Provide Feedback

You can still choose to provide feedback at any time. To open the Windows Feedback app, open your Start menu, select “All Apps”, and launch the “Windows Feedback” app. You can also search for “Windows Feedback” in your Start menu or Start screen to launch the app.

Sign into the app with a Microsoft account and you’ll be able to search for problems reports and feature requests, upvoting them if you have the same feedback. You can also submit a new piece of feedback that other people can vote on.

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This feedback is, in aggregate, used to help Microsoft understand how you feel about Windows 10 and its various features. If you don’t mind the feedback requests, you might want to leave them enabled and respond to Microsoft with your opinion.

After all, Microsoft removed the Start menu and Start button back in Windows 8 because, as it said at the time, few users actually used the Start menu according to the usage data it received. It’s likely that the “power users” who most frequently used the Start menu were also the same users who went out of their way to prevent Windows from reporting usage statistics to Microsoft.

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Speed Up Your iPhone by Manually Clearing the RAM | Dramel Notes

Have you ever found yourself messing around with your iPhone, only to have it start to feel a little sluggish? It feels like everything you want to do takes longer than it should. Launching Twitter should happen in an instant, but it doesn’t!

Maybe you need to flush your iPhone’s RAM. I’m not talking about manually quitting all of the apps running. Rather, I’m talking about a lesser-known technique that will get everything out of RAM and let you feel like the phone just turned on.

The first thing you need to do is hold the power button until “Slide to Power Off” appears on the screen. Don’t slide it though! Instead, press and hold the Home button for a few seconds, and you will be placed back on the Home screen with a fresh slate as far as your RAM is concerned.

Don’t believe me? Double-tap the Home button. You’ll see that the apps you were running are still there, but if you click one, it will need to relaunch as if you were launching it from its icon.

Also, it should be noted that iOS generally does a good job of managing memory, and you shouldn’t need to do this often. But if something goes wrong, it’s a nice trick to have in your back pocket!

Have you tried using this technique when your iPhone is running slowly? Did it solve your problem? Let us know!

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How to Change Passwords on Any Device (Windows, Mac, Smartphone) | Dramel Notes

It may seem like a simple thing, but changing your password is a fact of life, and knowing how to do it is something we here at How-To Geek generally take for granted, but the question is: do you know how to change your password?

Changing your password regularly may not be the best course of action, but changing it to something strong and hard to crack or guess is.

It’s a fairly routine process once you know what you’re doing, but assuming that everyone knows exactly how it’s done doesn’t make it so. Today, we want to show you how to change your password on Windows (7, 8.1 & 10), OS X, Android, and iOS (iPhone and iPad).

We hope then, armed with this new knowledge, that you’ll take a moment to change your password on your devices because while it isn’t the most secure method of locking out snoops and hackers, it is still often the first and only line of defense against them.

Changing Your Password on Windows

To change your password on Windows, you will need to go through the following steps.

Windows 7

Wndows 7 is still the choice of a vast majority of Windows users and as such, needs to be addressed first. To change you password, you’ll first need to open the Control Panel and click “User Accounts”.

In your user account screen, click “Change your password”.

You will first need to enter your current password and then you can change it to the new one.

Let’s move on next to Windows 8.1, which has an entirely different way of going about things.

Windows 8.1

With the introduction of the Windows 8.x Start screen and the “Metro” style interface, the method of changing your password was moved entirely to PC settings.

In the PC settings, click on “Accounts”.

On the Accounts screen, click the “Change” button under the Password heading.

You will first need to enter your current password.

Once you enter your current password, you can then change it to something new.

Up next is Windows 10, which isn’t entirely different from Windows 8.1.

Windows 10

In Windows 10, the PC settings are now simply called Settings, and the way to change your password is still located in the Accounts section.

In the Accounts section, click on “Sign-in options” and then click “Change” under the “Password” heading.

Assuming you’re using a Microsoft account, you’ll immediately be prompted to enter your current password before you can proceed.

Once you enter your Microsoft account password, you’ll again be prompted to enter your old password and then you can change it to your new password.

If you use a local account on either Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, the procedure will be almost entirely identical. Simply go to the Accounts section in the PC settings or Settings, respectively, click “Change” in the Password section, and follow the prompts.

Changing Your Password on OS X

Changing your password on OS X is cinch and should only take a few seconds. First open the System Preferences and then click on “Users & Groups”.

Now, you should see your account Password screen where you can click the “Change Password…” button.

If you want to use your iCloud password to log into and unlock your Mac, you can do so at the next dialog, however, for our purposes we’re just going to change the local password on our machine’s user account so we’ll click “Change Password…” when prompted.

Simply now fill in the blanks. Enter your old password and then the new one. If you’re having a hard time thinking of a new password, then click the key icon next to the “New password” box for a handy password generator.

It’s as simple as that to change your password on your computer(s). Let’s move on now to smartphone and tablets.

Changing Your Password on Android

Android doesn’t really press you to add security to your device, which we think is a bad thing. You should always have some kind of screen lock just in case you lose your phone or it gets stolen.

To add or change your device’s screen lock, first open the Settings and tap open the “Security” option.

On the next screen, you will see the “Screen lock” option. Tap that open to add or change your device’s accessibility.

You’ll have three options to choose from (we don’t recommend None or Swipe). Out of all three, the Pattern is probably our preferred method but you can also choose a PIN or a traditional Password to unlock your device.

Finally, let us move on to iOS, which takes device security far more seriously than Android, in our opinion.

Changing Your Passcode on iPhone or iPad

If you’re using a recent iPhone 5 or later, then you’ll have the wonderful option of Touch ID to unlock your device, but you will still need to enter your passcode from time to time such as when you restart.

To change your passcode, first open the Settings and then tap open “Touch ID & Passcode”.

You will immediately need to enter your passcode before you can proceed.

Scroll down until you see the passcode options. You can either turn the passcode off (not recommended) or you can change it.

When you change your passcode, you will again be prompted to enter your old one.

Once you do that, you will need to enter a new one.

Note, there are also options to use a different type of passcode such as an alphanumeric code, which is a traditional password, a custom numeric code, or if you’re using iOS 9, you can resort the older and less secure 4-digit passcode (not recommended).

Knowing how to change or even add passwords to your devices is smart and often necessary. Unfortunately, device makers typically don’t make this obvious and as such, users often use the same method of accessing their devices for as long as they own them.

To that end, it’s up to you to make your device’s security your personal goal. The chances or your devices being “hacked” or broken into depends entirely on how careful you are with it, and the complexity of the security you’ve put into place.

Don’t be complacent about this, much of your life is contained within a very small item that can easily be lost or stolen.

We hope this article was useful to you and you now feel confident changing your passwords on your computer, phone, or tablet. If you have any questions or comments you would like to contribute, please leave your feedback in our discussion forum.

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How to Improve Your Amazon Echo Experience by Training It to Your Voice | Dramel Notes

If you feel like Alexa just doesn’t understand you as clearly as she should it might be time for a little one-on-one voice training. Read on as we show you how to train Alexa to recognize your speaking voice and get a better user experience in the process.

Why Do I Want To Do This?

Like all voice assistants Alexa isn’t perfect at understanding everything we say. Although we’ve had a very smooth experience with Alexa right out of the box that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement just like there is with Siri and other voice-assistants. (And, in fact, if you want to also train Siri, Cortana, or the voice recognition on your Android phone, you can check out our article on the topic here.)

Thankfully, like with other voice-assistants, there is a way to train Alexa to better understand your speaking voice and accent. The training method only takes a few minutes and as long as you have your Amazon Echo, Amazon Fire, or other Alexa-enabled device on hand (and the smart device you use to control it), you’ll be done in no time.

Prepping for Your Training Session

Before you begin your training session there are a few minor things to consider. You want to do the training under the normal conditions you use the device. So, for example, if your Echo is located in your kitchen and you generally issue commands to the Echo/Alexa while across the room from it, then that’s where you want to do the training from. In addition you want to use the same voice you normally speak to Alexa in (don’t go out of your way to speak with precise and clear diction like you were making a court statement or such).

It doesn’t help Alexa better recognize your voice if you get right up to the microphone (or use the Echo remote with the build-in microphone) or go out of your way to speak as properly and slowly as possible if, in daily use, you’re far away from the microphone and you tend to speak quickly and in a different tone/accent.

Finally, turn off any background noise (like a television in the other room) to better isolate your speaking voice during the actual training session.

Starting the Training Session

Once you’ve prepared for the training session and you’re in the location you’re generally in when using Alexa (be that standing at the kitchen sink or sitting in your office chair), it’s time to launch the actual training session.

Open the Amazon Alexa app on your smartphone, select the menu icon in the upper left corner of the screen (the three bar icon), and then in the drop down menu select “Voice Training” at the very bottom.

When you select “Voice Training” there’s one last selection to make.

For most people (who only own one Alexa-enabled device) it will be defaulted to that device, typically [Your Name]’s Echo. If you have more than one Alexa-enabled device linked to your Amazon Prime account you’ll need to select the one you’ll actually be doing the voice training with.

Don’t worry about which device you use (beyond using the one physically closest to you) as the voice-language-learning isn’t localized to the device but linked to your account. Train Alexa well on one of your devices and she should understand you better on every other device.

With the correct device selected, click “Start Session”.

The top of your Echo will light up and you’ll be prompted to read through the sentences, slide-show style. Read each sentence and then either click “Next” to move onto the next entry or “Repeat Phrase” if you feel like you fumbled it.

One tip we’d offer is this: read the sentence silently in your head and then look away from the screen and repeat it out loud. If you read it right off the screen you’ll have a tendency to use your reading-aloud voice which, for most people, is different than their regular speaking voice. By reading it first and then saying it out loud you’ll say it in a more natural cadence/accent. After all you don’t want Alexa to get good at understanding you when you’re reading a speech but when you’re talking normally to her at home.

Once you’ve completed the 25 statements you can, if you wish, repeat the process again to further fine tune the results. Although we found that Alexa didn’t need multiple voice training sessions the prompts are different each time and you may find that it’s educational to work on the voice training multiple times. Not only does it help refine Alexa’s ear but you might just discover new tricks as the app prompts you to try new commands with Alexa.

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Have a pressing tech question about your Amazon Echo, Alexa, or other home automation and voice-assistant technologies? Shoot us an email at ask@howtogeek.com and we’ll do our best to answer it.

Images courtesy of Amazon.

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4 Reasons to Avoid Buying an E-Reader This Christmas | Dramel Notes

Between e-readers and tablets, e-readers provide a much better reading experience. In fact, depending on your preferences, you may even like e-readers more than physical books. Simply put, e-readers are pretty awesome.

But that doesn’t mean they make good gifts. Here are four reasons why you shouldn’t buy one in 2015.

1. Big Updates Are Coming in 2016

Two important pieces of technology go into an e-reader: the electronic ink screen and the system-on-a-chip, which provides the device’s screen clarity, refresh rate, processing power, wireless capabilities, battery endurance, and more.

Neither of these technologies have been improved at all since 2013, and they haven’t received any major improvements since 2011. However, both might get a major update in 2016!

System-on-a-Chip Technologies

The i.MX5, released in 2010, was the world’s first processor and chipset purpose-designed for electronic ink display management. The package allowed e-readers to have month-long battery lives, faster page turns, and fewer jarring page refreshes. Freescale followed up with the marginally improved i.MX6 design in 2011, but since then, nothing.

But all of that changes in 2016 when Freescale’s newly announced i.MX7 begins entering products. I don’t want to overhype the importance of Freescale’s new design, but it’s orders of magnitude more power efficient than the previous generation of e-reader processors. For one thing, it’s built on the 28nm production process (almost half of the 40nm used in the older i.MX6), and smaller is better.

The i.MX7 also introduces a new kind of design called Heterogeneous Multicore Processing Architecture (HMPA), which allows two processor architectures to operate simultaneously. Unlike older processors, the i.MX7 uses two processing cores: one core has a Cortex A7 architecture while the other has a more power-efficient Cortex M4 architecture.

In the world of ARM processors, there are fast and slow cores. The faster cores tend to offer performance at the expense of power efficiency while the slower cores do the opposite.

HMPA enables each core to handle tasks suited to its processing needs. In the i.MX7, the Cortex A7 handles tasks requiring performance while the Cortex M4 handles slower tasks, such as turning pages. This is nice because the Cortex M4 offers the best pound-for-pound power consumption around.

Judging from the processor specs alone, the i.MX7 represents the single biggest leap in performance and battery life in e-reader history. But because it won’t enter products until 2016, there’s a huge technology gap between current and upcoming devices.

Display Technologies

Similar to e-reader processors, e-paper displays haven’t changed much since 2013. One of the first displays was E Ink’s Vizplex, which arrived in 2007 and became the de facto standard for e-paper devices. Three years later, E Ink released the Pearl, which similarly came to dominate digital readers.

As the technology matured, E Ink further diversified its product portfolio with the flexible Mobius, followed by the faster and higher-contrast Carta in 2013 (which is found in the awesome Kindle Paperwhite). As of late 2015, Pearl and Carta displays control the market.

It’s worth noting that E Ink incrementally updates each of its three lines, with each subsequent production receiving higher pixels-per-inch — but in the two years since its last major release, E Ink has yet to announce a new product line.

It appears that E Ink introduces a new line of screens approximately every three years. Vizplex was announced in 2007, Pearl released in 2010, and Mobius and Carta arrived in 2013. If their product release cycle is based on a three-year production schedule, something new is coming in 2016.

2. E-Readers Are Pretty Much the Same

There are lots of good e-readers out there, but they’re mostly clones of one another. E-readers all employ a formulaic design, and as such, they all use identical internal components and screens.

The Kindle Voyage, Kobo Glo HD (a good alternative to the Kindle), Nook Glowlight Plus, and Kindle Paperwhite 3 all use the same components: a Carta screen and an i.MX6 processor. The value proposition just isn’t there. Why pay hundreds of dollars for a black-and-white display that can only read books?

However, some emergent technologies would enable full color e-readers. One of these technologies is called Electrowetting, a technology invented by Liquavista, a subsidiary of Amazon.

As you can see, Electrowetting combines the power efficiency of electronic ink with the performance of an LCD screen.

It’s not the only innovation, though. Other technologies include Qualcomm’s Mirasol and the open-license Pixel Qi transflective display. Unfortunately, none of these technologies will appear this holiday season. The earliest you might see any of these is 2017.

Another technology that hobbles the current generation of e-readers is its touchscreen. Right now the industry is split between capacitive touchscreens and infrared touchscreens.

Capacitive touchscreens lay a thin layer of conductive material over the screen to gray out text. Infrared screens overcome this limitation by positioning light emitting components around the reader’s bezel, which increases a device’s thickness.

But a new technology called Cambrios ClearOhm solves this by using a transparent touchscreen layer:

If ClearOhm proves viable, future models of e-reader could combine the clarity of infrared screens with the thinness of capacitive technology — but no e-reader will use this technology in 2015.

3. The Holiday Season Is Most Expensive

E-readers – even more than other devices – cost a premium during the holidays. During most of the year, up until Black Friday, there are constant price-drops and promotions. For example, in February 2015, the normally $199 Kindle Voyage sold for a bargain-basement price of $59.

Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Kobo all heavily discount their e-readers during the summer (and sometimes the fall) to make room for new products. If you purchase during the holidays, the price will almost always be at full retail value.

4. Modern E-Readers Are All Closed

At present, no major manufacturer offers unrestricted access to the Android operating system.

A few small companies do offer Android e-readers with half-baked firmware, such as the Onyx Boox series. Users can also hack a Nook Simple Touch to get full access to Android, meaning users can install any app they want. (They can even play games.) But nothing like this is available for big name products.

An open operating system would allow users to read any of their files regardless of format, whether ePUB, MOBI, PDF, or whatever else, provided that they also have an appropriate reading app available in the Google Play Store.

When Should You Buy an E-Reader?

Even though e-readers offer a fantastic means of reading books, 2015 is the worst year to buy one due to the gap in technology. There also isn’t a lot of variety in today’s market because all e-readers use similar — if not identical — components. On top of that, buying during the holiday season means getting gouged.

We recommend that you wait a few more months to see what kinds of new products are released by major manufacturers in 2016. However, if you absolutely need one right now, then check out our guide to picking the perfect e-reader.

Are you going to buy one or are you going to wait until next year? What kind of features are you looking for in an e-reader? Drop a comment below and share with us!

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5 Sites With Tips and Tools for Creating Presentations | Dramel Notes

Have an important presentation coming up? You should really be working on that instead of browsing the Internet, but if that doesn’t sound good to you right now here are a few sites and tools that might help get you started.

We’ve shown you how to improve your PowerPoint skills overnight, but there’s more to giving a presentation than mastering presentation software. Let’s go over some sites with tips for speaking, then go over a few tools that might make the process easier for you.

You can read this article and bookmark the sites you find useful, but after that you’ve got to get back to work on your talk. Deal? Then let’s get started.

Speaking.io: A Complete Guide to Giving a Presentation

Zach Holman gives a lot of presentations as a startup adviser; this site outlines tips he’s learned over the years. You’ll find tips for writing your talk, designing your slides, and preparing for putting it all together in the presentation. Everything is laid out nicely, the writing is conversational, and the tips are straight-forward but effective.

Each of the above bullet point leads to a link with more thoughts, so there’s actually quite a lot to parse here. If you’re getting ready for a speech, this is a great place to start and get some ideas. Dive in!

Teleprompter.com: Free Online Teleprompter for Presentations and Videos

It’s usually best to memorize your presentation, but if that’s not an option a teleprompter can be a good stand-in. This lets you read without constantly shuffling cue cards, and while recording a video lets you look at the camera while reading.

Teleprompter is a free web app you can use right now, without even signing up, to quickly make yourself a teleprompter script. Put your thoughts together, give yourself breaks, and pace your speech so you don’t rush through it.

We’ve outlined teleprompter apps before, but this one stands out for being clean and functional on any device with a web browser. Give it a shot.

Swoosh (Android): Use Gestures to Control Your Presentations

Changing slides during a presentation can be awkward. You can bring along someone else to do it for you, but if they don’t have time to rehearse with you this can throw off your timing – or force you to say “next slide please” a lot.

Swoosh is an Android app you can use as a remote control for your presentation. Connect it to any computer and you can control a variety of presentation software, from PowerPoint to Haiku Deck.

It’s a little bit of work to set up, and depends on both devices being connected to the same WiFi network. But once everything is ready you can change slides by swiping your hand over your phone, which is a simple gesture that feels natural and shouldn’t distract too much. Test it out before using it on stage, of course!

Swipe.to: Share a Link and Present Online

Can’t give your presentation in person? You might want to give it over the phone, but that means whoever you’re talking to won’t be able to see your slides. Some companies use unnecessarily complicated screensharing apps for this reason, but Swipe.to offers another way.

You design your slide on Swipe itself. When it’s time to present, simply share a link with your audience. They can open the site, and see your presentation in real-time – when you change the slides, they change on everyone else’s screen. So if you want to make a presentation during a teleconference, this is worth looking into.

Slides.com: Design Presentations in Your Browser

PowerPoint is ubiquitous, but it’s not for everyone. If you can’t find a presentation app that you like, it’s always worth knowing about more options. Slides.com is a web-based presentation app with a variety of embed options and a focus on minimalist design.

There’s a variety of tools you can use during a live presentation, such as a speaker view. When your talk is done, it’s easy to share your Slides.com presentations with the world – here’s an example of what that looks like. It’s a solid alternative to the dominant players, so take some time to learn it if you’ve been wanting something different.

What Public Speaking Tips Do You Have?

Of course, websites and tools are only going to get you so far – eventually you’re just going to have to get to work and finish putting together your presentation. While you’re procrastinating, though, why not join me in the comments below and talk a bit more about your favorite public speaking tips?

I’ll get us started! We’ve outlined ways to improve your public speaking skills in the past, and ways to conquer your public speaking demons. We’ve even shown you some TED talks that are worth imitating. But I bet you have some better tips, so please share them below.

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Do You Trust Wikipedia? [MakeUseOf Poll] | Dramel Notes

Rightly or wrongly, Wikipedia doesn’t have the best reputation for accuracy. However, is that simply a hangover from its early days?

Does it deserve this reputation, or is Wikipedia now as trustworthy as any other website presenting a version of the truth?

We’re keen to find out how people view the trustworthiness of Wikipedia, and we need your help in doing so. Welcome to this week’s MakeUseOf Poll!

Blank Friday

To answer this week’s question please scroll down the page until you see the poll staring back at you. But first, we need to look at the results from last week, when we asked, “Did You Buy Any Gadgets on Black Friday?”

Out of a total of 117 votes, 53% chose No, I Didn’t Want Anything, 29% chose Yes, I Got a Bargain, 7.7% chose No, I Tried and Failed, 1.7% chose Yes, But I Regret It, and 8.6% chose What Is Black Friday?

These results suggest that most of our readers didn’t head out on Black Friday determined to grab a bargain. Mostly because they didn’t actually want anything. Still, a fair proportion of those who voted in the poll did manage to pick something up, no doubt ensuring this tradition will continue on for many more years to come.

Comment of the Week

We received a lot of great comments, including those from James Howde, Patrick Balingit, and DzBnk. Comment of the Week goes to Mark Major, who earns our admiration and affection for this comment:

2 words… Cyber Monday, I got ever so slightly better online deals last year so I’ll try and see if I can repeat that this year.

We chose this comment because while it’s short, simple, and to the point, it could help explain why the popularity of Black Friday seems to be dipping. Why waste a day fighting through crowds to save $100 or so, when you can probably save more shopping online in your underwear?

Shopping online is now such a mainstream activity that we suspect Cyber Monday will end up becoming a much bigger deal than its bricks-and-mortar equivalent in the years to come. If it hasn’t already done so.

Wikipedia Worries

Wikipedia has been one of the foundations of the Internet for many years, providing a source of knowledge for children and adults alike. However, it has its flaws, one of which is the possibility of mistakes creeping into its pages. Its team of editors do a fine job, but no one is perfect.

With the news that Wikipedia has developed a new artificial intelligence designed to weed out bad edits, we thought it was worth finding out what our readers think of the online encyclopedia. We’re especially interested in finding out how much you trust Wikipedia, whether fully, partially, or barely.

Once you have voted in the poll above, please explain in the comments section below why you voted that way. If you trust Wikipedia, why? If you distrust Wikipedia, why? Have you had a good or bad experience using Wikipedia? Is there a particular Wikipedia page you have issues with?

The more information you can provide with your comment, the more accurate our conclusions can be based on the results. The best comment of the week will win our everlasting admiration and affection. At least until we all meet back here again this time next week with a new question.

Image Credits: Tom Morris via Flickr, Giulia Forsythe via Flickr

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Learn to Love Flying Again with These Secret Travel Tips | Dramel Notes

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t like to travel. Similarly, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who actually enjoys flying. From the TSA, to overpriced airport food, to being bumped from your flight when it’s overbooked; you could be forgiven for thinking that modern air travel is designed to be a frustrating — and at times Kafkaesque – experience.

I, on the other hand, don’t mind flying. Over the past two years, I’ve taken over 50 individual flights, much of it within Europe and on transatlantic routes. I’ve learned to cope with the arcane and unyielding rules of airports, and the general misery of flying economy.

This is partly because I’ve learned how to plan my trips with the aim of maximizing my overall comfort, and using technology to make my trip that bit more bearable.

Here are some of the “secret flying tips” you need to know.

Before Your Flight

Before you even set foot in the airport, there’s a lot you can do to improve your flying experience. This will require a bit of research, as you’ll soon find out.

Pick Your Airline

Some people are quite happy to sit on an airplane and bide their time with a good book while they wait for the plane to touch down. They’re not concerned with in-flight amenities like a free drinks service, or an In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) screen. Others are a bit more demanding.

With that in mind, it’s always helpful to do a bit of research into the airline you’ll be flying with. This is especially true when you travel within Europe, as some of the airlines you often associate with premium service (like Aer Lingus and Brussels Airways – both “flag carrier” airlines) are indistinguishable from traditional “no frills” airlines, like Spirit, Ryanair, and EasyJet, and do not offer complimentary meals or drink service.

Before booking a flight with an unfamiliar airline, I first search for them on SkyTrax. Not only does this give me a real-world overview of what their customers think, but I also get an understanding of what to expect in terms of seats and service.

Another great tool is Wanderbat, which allows you to directly compare multiple airlines based purely on the fees they charge, the service they offer, and what their customers think.

Pick Your Aircraft

Confession: I’m a hardcore airplane nerd.

Seriously, drive me to any airport, and I’ll be able to point out each of the different jets sitting on the tarmac. “There’s a 747. There’s an A330. There’s an Embraer ERJ-175″.

So, why do I get so excited about aircraft?

Because I know that the aircraft I fly on directly impacts how comfortable I will be on my journey. I know that if I’ve got a choice between a cramped Embraer regional jet and a Boeing 737, the 737 will be slightly roomier. Likewise, if I’m doing a transatlantic jaunt and I’ve got a choice between a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and any of the competing Airbus planes, I’ll pick the Dreamliner because it has bigger storage bins, adjustable LED lighting that’s easy on the eyes, and large windows that flood the cabin with natural light.

Moreover, I know that planes can differ from airline to airline. Some airlines, for example, fly 757s on transatlantic routes that are equipped with personal entertainment screens, where you can choose the films and TV shows you want to watch. Others use the older-style drop-down screens, where you have to squint to watch the same awful Harrison Ford film as everyone else.

I know what planes to avoid and what planes to aim for. This information directly influences how I plan my travel.

Before I pay for a trip, I look at FlightAware, and search for the route I’m interested in taking. Below I’m looking at London Heathrow (LHR) to Newark (EWR).

As you can see, a number of airlines fly this route, each using different equipment. Since I prefer to fly long-haul flights on Boeing 787 Dreamliners, I’ll choose to fly British Airways.

It’s worth noting that you can usually find out what aircraft will be operated before you book a flight straight from the airline.

Once I know the airline and the plane, I plug that information into SeatGuru. This tells me what amenities are offered; from personal entertainment screens, to in-flight WiFi.

Pick Your Seat

Not all airline seats are created equally. if you let your airline choose your seat for you, you’re taking a huge gamble on your overall comfort.

If you end up at the back of the plane, you’re going to end up with a rigid bulkhead seat which you won’t be able to recline. You’ll probably be the last to be served when the meal service comes round, which also means you might not get your first choice of food. Triple whammy – you’re miserable, uncomfortable, and you get the vegetarian option for dinner.

Sitting near the toilet is equally bad. Generally, things are a bit more pungent here, and if you want to catch a bit of shuteye, the constant movement of people rushing to use the toilet will keep you awake.

Moreover, some seats have IFE boxes underneath them, which are responsible for powering that row’s in-flight entertainment systems. These are bulky, and can really limit the amount of legroom you have.

As you can see, there are a lot of variables that can affect your overall comfort level when flying. Personally speaking, I like to sit at the very front row of economy. These seats generally have more legroom, and you’re amongst the first to get served lunch, and the first to leave the plane. But if that’s not available, it’s always good to identify the second (and often third) best seats available.

Again, I do that with Seat Guru. Plug in the airline and the aircraft, and it’ll point out the seats to snap up, and the seats to avoid. For example, check out economy on the British Airways Boeing 747-400. I’m looking at my preferred seat:

Here, it thoroughly discusses the advantages and disadvantages of this particular row. Namely, although it comes with miles more legroom, it lacks floor storage and movable armrests. You might be disturbed by screaming infants too, because this row is often used by parents, because they can seat a bassinet on the floor.

SeatGuru even identifies the bad seats, and explains why they should be avoided. Check out this utterly crummy seat, also on a Boeing 747.

At The Airport

Airports are never fun. Doubly-so when you’ve got an excruciating long layover. Thankfully, if you’ve got a smartphone, you can make them a bit more tolerable. Here’s how.

Visit a Lounge

Whenever I have a layover that’s longer than six hours, I leave the terminal and head into the city. It’s a great way to stretch your legs, see a new city, and get some fresh air. I really like long layovers.

But if that’s not an option, layovers can be immensely frustrating. There’s only so many tasteless, $20 airport burgers you can eat. There’s only so many times you can pace the aisles of the Duty Free store, trying to work out whether that bottle of Johnnie Walker costs more here, or at your local supermarket. But there’s a better way.

I am, of course, talking about airport lounges.

You could be forgiven for thinking that these are reserved for besuited, high-power businesspeople. People like George Clooney in Up in The Air, who’ve accumulated enough status and air miles to enter these air-conditioned oases, with their free food and complimentary drinks. But that’s totally not the case. If you’re willing to pay a flat fee, you too can get in.

Off to Korea for 10 days ???????????????? #HalfTerm #AirportLounge #RKOI

A photo posted by W.S.J. ? (@wsjung8) on Oct 21, 2015 at 11:53pm PDT

A great tool for finding lounges is LoungeBuddy, available for iOS and Android. Type in the Airport you’re in, and it’ll tell you where the lounge is, and how much it’ll cost you. It’ll be less than you think, too. Generally, lounge access runs from between $30 to $60.

In my experience, the more expensive the lounge, the better the amenities. Those at the higher price point tend to come with complimentary showers, business suites with Apple computers, and superior food and drink.

If you’re a frequent traveler, it’s also perhaps worth getting a subscription to PriorityPass. For $399, you get unlimited access to select airport lounges worldwide for an entire year. $399 sounds steep, but it might end up saving you money, as you won’t have to pay for food, beverages, or Internet access whenever you visit an airport.

There are cheaper subscriptions, of course. $99 gets you a discount on each visit to a lounge, while $249 gets you 10 free visits, with each subsequent visit costing only $27.

Managing your PriorityPass subscription is super easy, too. They offer mobile apps for Android, iPhone and Blackberry, where you can access your digital membership card, modify your billing information, and rate the lounges you’ve visited.

Get Some Shuteye

I’m probably not the only one. I simply can’t sleep on airplanes. I don’t know why. I just can’t.

If you’ve got a long layover, or even worse, an overnight layover, you’re going to want to get some rest. But here’s the problem – airports aren’t naturally conducive to a restful night’s sleep. They’re just too loud, and bustling.

If you’re on a paper-thin budget, pay Sleeping in Airports a visit. This site provides tips for making your overnight airport stay a bit more restful, with reviews from real-world frugal travelers.

The next step up from that is to crash in the lounge. Some lounges, like the British Airways lounge at London Heathrow, have cabanas which you can rent out by the hour. For more information, check what LoungeBuddy has to say.

Finally, if you’ve got a slightly bigger budget, consider booking into an airport hotel. These are generally quite cheap, especially when compared to city hotels, but you can get them for even less with the Hotel Tonight app (which we first covered back in 2012), available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

Hotel Tonight works by offloading unsold hotel rooms for a steep discount. While they’re often not the best rooms, they can be significantly cheaper than buying them from a hotel search engine.

When You Land

Once your plane has touched down, you’re then faced with the challenge of getting to your hotel. Thankfully, technology can make this step a bit easier.

Get Online

Although the cost of data roaming is plummeting – largely thanks to the European Union – it’s still a very expensive proposition to get online while abroad. I was recently in the US, and if I wanted to use the Internet on my UK cell phone, a megabyte would cost £5 (about $7.50).

Some countries also have spotty (or highly restricted) public WiFi access. Take Italy, for example. Since 2005, anyone who wants to offer any kind of public Internet access has to first ask for permission from the police, and has to take ID from anyone who wants to use the network. Although the rules have been relaxed recently, you still have to show government issued ID to use an Internet Café.

It’s similarly strict for WiFi hotspots. I was in Rome for five days earlier this year, and each Wi-Fi hotspot required you to authenticate with either an Italian cell phone (which I didn’t have), or your credit card details (which I wasn’t prepared to provide).

It’s especially problematic when your plane has just landed, and you have no way to order a ride or find directions to your accommodation. Lots of airports do not offer free WiFi access. This is especially true for the smaller airports that are used by low-budget airlines, like Brussels Charleroi and Paris Beauvais.

I’ve started to get around this by using a SkyRoam Hub.

This is a mobile WiFi hotspot, but with one important difference. Inside is a virtual SIM which allows you to securely access the Internet anywhere in the world for a flat rate of $10 per day. There are no surcharges, contracts or caps. And when I say anywhere, I mean it. SkyRoam covers most of Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australasia. Coverage in Africa is a bit spottier, however.

Although the day rate is pretty cheap, you do need to buy the hotspot. This costs $125, and includes five day passes. But it’s worth it, I’ve found.

If you’re only concerned with using messaging apps, you might want to consider purchasing a ChatSim (formerly known as WhatSim). These SIM cards allow you to send messages over Whatsapp, Line, BBM, Kik and more, for a flat fee of €10 (about $11).

Get Out

The final hurdle when it comes to air travel is actually leaving the terminal. Everything about this stage of your journey is terrible – from getting through passport control and security, to navigating unfamiliar public transportation services. Terrible.

Some people are actually trying to solve this problem.

In June this year, I attended the Challengers conference in Barcelona, where I met a number of European and American startups. One which caught my eye was called Cityhook. This Dublin-based startup is trying to make the travel experience that bit less painless by offering a service that allows you to simply book airport connections online.

CityHook also has an API (Application Programming Interface), which they hope airlines will use in order to offer their passengers connections to their onward destinations as a value-added service.

Those who use Uber a lot probably know that many airports won’t let divers pick up passengers from outside the terminal. In these circumstances, I instead use Hailo.

Hailo is like Uber in many respects. You book your ride through your smartphone, and you pay using a saved credit card. They key difference is that instead of riding in someone else’s personal car, you’re using an actual taxi.

Hailo is available to download for iOS and Android. You can also book trips through their website.

Don’t Hate the Journey

There’s a lot to hate about air travel, from unsmiling TSA officers, to seemingly endless layovers, to being burdened with the middle seat. But with a bit of creativity, and by taking advantage of technology, you can make your journey that bit easier.

Do you use technology to enhance air travel? I want to hear about it. Drop me a comment below, and we’ll chat.

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13 Tips to Quickly Improve Your Photos | Dramel Notes

It doesn’t matter whether you’re shooting with the latest and greatest DSLR or a three year old smartphone, what results is still a photograph. Good photos and bad photos aren’t determined by cameras but by photographers.

The difference between a bad photo and a good photo — or a good photo and a great photo — can be very slim. Subtle changes may be all that’s required to close the gap. With that in mind, here are 13 tips that will quickly improve your photos.

Post-Process Your Images

The single biggest thing you can do to improve the quality of your images is post-process them. You can use Photoshop, Lightroom, or any other app you like. There’s no need to make dramatic changes; simply adjusting the exposure, contrast, and color tone is enough to take an okay image and make it special.

The problem is that film photography had a look. Each individual film stock had certain characteristics and no two were the same. This is what Instagram filters try to replicate. Some films were contrasty while others emphasised green tones. Straight out of camera, film images have basically been edited.

Digital images, however, are designed to be neutral representations of the scene. Straight out of camera they are flat and lifeless; they have no character. Post processing them brings them to the same point that a film image is at.

Shoot Raw

You should always shoot RAW image files if you can — no matter what Bryan says. RAW files save a lot more data than JPGs so you have a lot more flexibility to edit your images after you shoot. This means that you’ve more chance of nailing the shot and creating a great image.

The only time you shouldn’t is when your camera doesn’t support it.

Instagram Doesn’t Count as Editing

Most of Instagram’s filters are great but they’ve become much too recognizable. Slapping an Instagram filter on top of your image might make it look kind of cool but it won’t make it a better photo. If you want to edit using a mobile app, try VSCO Cam instead.

Go Easy on the “X”

It doesn’t matter whether “X” is contrast, HDR, a vignette, or color toning, go easy with it.

Plenty of great images are ruined by photographers being too heavy handed while they edit. Unless there is a strong artistic reason to push an image hard in one direction it’s best to be subtle. As a rule of thumb, dial every effect you add to an image back from 100% to 70%.

Avoid Clichéd Photos

Selective color images—where one thing is a bright color and the rest of the picture is in black and white—aren’t cool, kids. They’re just one of many kinds of clichéd photos. This video from DigitalRevTV provides a great overview of 25 photo clichés. I don’t agree with all of them but for the most part they’re spot on. Avoid clichés like the plague.

Don’t Use a Massive Watermark

Nothing ruins a good image faster than an obnoxious watermark.

A small subtle logo in one corner is fine but your name in bold across the centre of the image not only stops people from stealing it, it stops people from looking at it. If you’re going to put your images online, you need to accept the risk that some people may share them or pass them off as their own.

Use the Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a simple compositional rule that leads to stronger photos.

According to the rule of thirds, you should divide your image into both horizontal and vertical thirds. The intersection points of the thirds is where you should place your subject for the strongest image.

While it’s not true in all situations, for most things it’s a quick and easy way to guarantee a strong composition.

Watch the Edges of Your Frame

Real life doesn’t have borders but photos do. It’s easy to forget this when you’re photographing.

The border of an image is a compositional element. If something is placed too close to the edge it creates tension in the image. This can be a good thing or a bad thing.

In general, if someone is looking or moving in one direction, they should be placed on the opposite edge of the frame so they appear to have some photo to move into.

Don’t Chop Limbs Off

Similar to the point above, watch where the edges intersect with your subject.

You should avoid cropping a portrait so that it chops half way through a persons limbs; it looks strange. The best places to crop a portrait are at the subject’s neck, arm pits, waist, just above the knee, or not at all. Be careful that things like hands aren’t accidentally cut off even if you crop at one of those points.

Avoid Compression Effects

While humans have depth perception, cameras don’t. What we see as a 3D scene they render as a 2D image. This means that some things that appear to have no relation in real life have a relationship created by the compression to two dimensions. The classic example is a subject standing in front of a tree or lamppost. While you see the scene normally when you’re shooting, in the final image the tree appears to grow out of the model’s head!

To create stronger images look at what your subject is standing in front of and think how it will be translated to two dimensions. If you thing it might not look good, change up the shot.

There’s No Such Thing as Bad Light

There’s no such thing as bad light, but certain kinds of light suits some subjects better.

Harsh midday light is one of the hardest to use effectively. If you plan on shooting a glamorous portrait in it you’re going to have a very difficult time. It’s far easier to shoot portraits when the sun is lower in the sky.

On the other hand, if you want to shoot some high contrast cityscapes, the midday sun may be exactly what you want. Don’t try and force photographs in less than ideal circumstances, instead use the strengths of what you have to work with.

Shoot Portraits in the Shade or With Window Light

If you’re shooting portraits without artificial lights, the two most flattering places to do it are in the shade outdoors on an overcast day or inside by the light of a window. Both situations create wonderfully flat light that is easy to work with.

Don’t Use Flash

When you’re shooting in low light it can be tempting to use the pop up flash on your camera. Don’t do it!

Unless you have something like a bounce card to make it a softer light source, it won’t lead to good photos. It’s far better to increase your ISO or tighten your aperture.

What Tips Do You Have?

That’s 13 tips that I’ve found are quick ways to improve your photos. Learning each and every one of these has made every image I’ve taken since better.

This, however, is hardly a complete list! If you’ve any great tips to quickly improve the quality of your photos, please let me know in the comments.

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How to Enable Full-Disk Encryption on Windows 10 | Dramel Notes

Windows 10 sometimes uses encryption by default, and sometimes it doesn’t — it’s complicated. Here’s how to check if your Windows 10 PC’s storage is encrypted and how to encrypt it if it isn’t. Encryption isn’t just about stopping the NSA — it’s about protecting your sensitive data in case you ever lose your PC.

Unlike all other modern consumer operating systems — Mac OS X, Chrome OS, iOS, and Android, –Windows 10 still doesn’t offer integrated encryption tools to everyone. You may have to pay for the Professional edition of Windows 10 or use a third-party encryption solution.

Device Encryption

Many new PCs that ship with Windows 10 will automatically have “Device Encryption” enabled. This feature was first introduced in Windows 8.1, and there are specific hardware requirements for this.

There’s another limitation, too — it only actually encrypts your drive if you sign into Windows with a Microsoft account. Your recovery key is then uploaded to MIcrosoft’s servers. This will help you recover your files if you ever can’t log into your PC. (This is also why the FBI likely isn’t too worried about this feature, but we’re just recommending encryption as a means to protect your data from laptop thieves here. If you’re worried about the NSA, you may want to use a different encryption solution.)

To check if Device Encryption is enabled, open the Settings app, navigate to System > About, and look for a “Device encryption” setting at the bottom of the About pane. If you don’t see anything about Device Encryption here, your PC doesn’t support Device Encryption and it’s not enabled.

BitLocker

If Device Encryption isn’t enabled — or if you want a more powerful encryption solution that can also encrypt removable USB drives, for example — you’ll want to use BitLocker. Microsoft’s BitLocker encryption tool has been part of Windows for several versions now, and it’s generally well regarded. However, Microsoft still restricts BitLocker to Professional editions of Windows 10.

If you already have a Professional edition of Windows 10 installed on your PC, you can search for “BitLocker” in the Start menu and use the BitLocker control panel to enable it. If you upgraded for free from Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8.1 Professional, you should have Windows 10 Professional.

If you don’t have a Professional edition of Windows 10, you can pay $99 to upgrade your Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Professional. Just open the Settings app, navigate to Update & security > Activation, and click the “Go to Store” button. You’ll gain access to BitLocker and the other features that Windows 10 Professional includes.

TrueCrypt and Its Derivatives

Spending another $99 just to encrypt your hard drive for some additional security can be a tough sell when modern Windows PCs often only cost a few hundred bucks in the first place. You don’t have to pay the extra money for encryption because BitLocker isn’t the only option. BitLocker is the most integrated, well-supported option — but there are other encryption tools you can use.

TrueCrypt — an open-source full-disk encryption tool — still works with Windows 10 and is still an option. There are also other full-disk encryption tools based on TrueCrypt. These are free, open-source encryption tools you can install on Windows 10 Home or previous versions of Windows to encrypt your hard drive if you don’t have access to BitLocker. Unfortunately, TrueCrypt might require some fiddling if you have a modern PC. But, if you have a Windows 7-era PC you’ve upgraded to Windows 10, it may just work.

Yes, TrueCrypt’s developers did famously shut down development and declare TrueCrypt vulnerable and unsafe to use, but the jury is still out in the security community on whether it actually is vulnerable or not. More importantly, much of the discussion around this centers on whether the NSA and other security agencies have a way to crack TrueCrypt encryption. If you’re just encrypting your hard drive so thieves can’t access your personal files if they steal your laptop, you don’t have to worry about this. TrueCrypt should be more than secure enough.

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We’d like to see Microsoft give more Windows 10 users access to BitLocker — or at least extend Device Encryption so it can be enabled on more PCs. Modern Windows computers should have built-in encryption tools, just like all other modern consumer operating systems do. Windows 10 users shouldn’t have to pay extra or hunt down third-party software to protect their important data if their laptops are ever misplaced or stolen..

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How to View Your Chromebook’s Hardware Specifications and System Information | Dramel Notes

Google doesn’t provide an easy way to see the storage, RAM, CPU, and other specifications of your Chromebook. But it’s possible to dig all this information up, just as you could on a traditional computer operating system.

The specifications matter if you’re considering upgrading your Chromebook and want to know how much hardware you have. This will also tell you if you have an ARM or Intel CPU, which is important if you’re installing a full Linux system on your Chromebook.

Check Available Storage

To view how much local storage your Chrome OS device has available, open the “Files” app and click the menu button. You’ll see a meter saying how much local storage space you have left. You can free up space by deleting files from your Downloads folder and clearing your cache.

View Memory, CPU, and Network Usage

Chrome has its own task manager on Chrome OS, too. To open it, open a Chrome window, click the menu button, point to “More Tools”, and select “Task Manager”. The task manager will show you how much memory, CPU, and network activity different web pages, browser extensions, and apps are using.

Use the System Page

Chrome OS offers a special page that shows all of this information. You don’t need to install anything extra to find it. Unfrotunately, this isn’t the most user-friendly interface.

To locate this interface, type “chrome://system” into Chrome’s address bar and press Enter. (You can open this page on Windows, Mac, or Linux, too — but Chrome won’t show anywhere near as much system information.)

Much of the information here will be more technical than what most people need, but you can see detailed information about your release version of Chrome OS, the device’s CPU, disk usage, its hardware platform, and network connection information.

Examine Network Connection Details

If you need to know your Chromebook’s network connection information — for example, its current IP address, its MAC address, or your router’s IP address — you can find this information in an easier way.

First, open the Settings page. You can do this by clicking the menu button in a Chrome browser window and selecting “Settings”, or by clicking the notification area and selecting Settings”.

Click the name of your network connection under “Internet connection” at the top of the Settings window and then click your connection name in the list. This information will be displayed on the “Connection” and “Network” tabs.

Find Your Chromebook’s Name with the Recovery Utility

Google offers a Chromebook Recovery Utility you can install on your Chromebook. Install this, launch it, and it will help you “Identify your Chromebook.” This app will display the exact model name of your Chromebook and match it to a more user-friendly name, allowing you to pinpoint the name of the Chromebook you’re using. You can then Google this Chromebook name for more information, if you like.

This utility is also essential for restoring your Chromebook’s operating system if it’s become damaged.

Install a System Information App

Google has added a variety of system APIs to Chrome OS, so simple apps can read system information and display it. Google hasn’t included such an interface with the operating system because it really doesn’t want you to have to care what hardware is in your Chromebook. These apps function like system information utilities like Speccy do on Windows.

For example, you could install Cog, a system information utility created by François Beaufort, a Google employee.

Cog will show you the name of your CPU and architecture, your current system CPU usage, the total amount of RAM in your system, the amount of memory left, network connection information, display specifications, and a few other details. Other apps work similarly, as there’s only so much information an app can get from Chrome OS and display to you.

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If necessary, more detailed hardware specifications can be found with a simple Google search after you find the exact model name of your Chromebook.

Image Credit: llcatta86 dotcom on Flickr

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