Video editing can mean different things to different people. Are you just trying to put some clips together for a social media post? Maybe you want to add some background music, or some text on the screen too? The more video effects you want to add, the more complicated your edit will become. Video editing software doesn’t need to be super complex, or expensive. If you’re looking for something that will get the job done without all the confusing bells and whistles, there are some great free software options to help you get started....

Summary I was the happy overlord of my domain with my smart home set up just the way I wanted until a simple cable modem glitch came along to burst my smug bubble. So I spent $50 and fixed the problem. Network Downtime Spells Disaster for a Smart Home These days you can achieveJetsonslevels of home automation, but without a robust network backbone to support it all, things can fall apart with the snap of a finger....

Quick Links There’s one thing that almost every Android and iPhone owner has in common: we all wish we used our phones less. There are countless methods for decreasing screen time, but they’re often convoluted. I’ll show you one simple trick that gets the job done. “Digital Wellbeing” came into focus in 2018 when both Apple and Google added features for building healthy phone usage habits. The software suites allow for tracking and managing screen time, blocking distractions, and making your phone less appealing....

Quick Links Summary A virtual server for a VPN is a server that acts as if it’s located in a specific country but is physically located in another country. Though the security concerns with using them are negligible, they’re not the best solution for other reasons. Whenchoosing the best VPN service, you’ll likely have found that a minority of VPNs use what are called virtual servers for some locations. What are these virtual servers, and are they as secure as physical ones?...

Summary The iPhone’s Journal app is a simple way to keep a record of events, including photos, videos, locations, workouts, music, and more. Typing out journal entries on your iPhone isn’t ideal, however. That’s where iPhone Mirroring can help. Why is the Journal App Only Available on the iPhone? If you’re an Apple user and have always wanted to keep a journal, you may have been excited when Apple launched theJournal appin 2023 alongside iOS 17....

Last year, Waymo paid the city of San Francisco $65,065 in fines. Theautonomous taxi company’s fleet of over 300 cars accumulated a staggering 589 parking tickets, as reported byThe Washington Post. The violations ranged from ignoring street cleaning restrictions and parking in prohibited areas like loading zones to blocking traffic.Waymo, however, defended itself, claiming that many of the citations were issued while the cars were picking up or dropping off passengers and emphasized that the vehicles were taking the safest route to do so....

Summary The wordlearngets thrown around a lot when people talk about Linux—phrases like “I’m learning Linux” or “You should learn Linux.” But what does that actually mean? Is it like a programming language? Let’s “learn” what’s going on. Is Linux Something You “Learn” or Something You “Use”? First and foremost, Linux is a tool, and you’re supposed to use it to achieve something. It can work like a simple operating system that you turn on to open the apps you want to use, just like you would with Windows or Mac....

Summary You may have noticed that some computer specifications now list RAM speeds in terms of MT/s or “Megatransfers per second” instead of the traditional Megahertz. Why the change? Glad you asked! How RAM Specs Worked Before RAM has traditionally been rated in Megahertz, with one MHz representing a million clock cycles. Computer hardware works in a clock cycle represented by a square wave, with a peak and a trough on the wave representing a single cycle....

Quick Links Summary Phantom power is a way of carrying electric current to power microphones without using a separate power supply. It’s typically used to power condenser microphones and the 48V DC power itself is supplied by most mixers, audio interfaces, and preamps. If you’re shopping for a microphone or audio interface, you’ve probably seen the term phantom power. But what exactly is phantom power, where does it come from, and do you need it to power your microphone?...

Quick Links Working in space is more than floating in microgravity. Astronauts train intensely and use advanced tools to not only survive, but also conduct advanced scientific research. Given the difficulties, how do they pull it off? An Astronaut’s Workplace Orbiting 250 miles above Earth, the International Space Station (ISS) is a the workplace and home of astronauts on long-duration missions in space. You cantrack and see the ISS yourselfif you want to take a look...

Summary Apple, Google, and Amazon are three of the biggest players in the smart home world. Each has its own smart home ecosystem that you can use to control a wide range of devices. Amazon Alexa and Google Home are solid smart home systems that are compatible with a wider selection of devices than Apple Home, but there are some key reasons why Apple Home is better than both of them....

Quick Links If you were around in the late 90s and early 2000s, you remember how technology seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. Eventually, we expected cassette and CD players to be as small as the media themselves–but that didn’t happen. How Hardware Changed With The Times Picture this: it’s 2002, and you just opened the latest Eminem album. You take out your shiny new portable CD player that’s only a little bit larger than the CD itself and pop it in to listen to the entire album on repeat....

A harmful game calledPirateFiappeared on Steam for about a week but ended up causing some users malware infections. Unfortunately, there were users who played that may have gotten malware. Steam took down this free beta game once reports about hacked accounts came in, but by then, days had already gone by. Valve reached out to the affected users, advising them to run a full scan with antivirus software and even suggested reinstalling their operating system to make sure any remaining malware was completely removed....