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Google has a tool designed to securely analyze your passwords against a database of ones that are known to be compromised and breached. Password Checkup is available as an extension or a web service. Here’s how to use it.
If you don’t use a third-party password manager or don’t use strong and secure passwords, the Password Checkup extension by Google helps you know if a password you use for non-Google websites has been exposed.
RELATED: How to Use Google Chrome to Generate Secure Passwords
Whenever you sign-in to an account, the extension checks the password against a database of known breaches—hashing both and comparing the results. If the password you use is among the list of known breaches, it alerts you and suggests you reset your password.
Fire up Chrome and head on over to the Chrome web store for the Password Checkup extension. Once there, click “Add To Chrome” to start the download.
Read the extension’s permissions and then click “Add Extension” to add it to your browser.
If you’re moving from Windows to Mac, you might be wondering how to right-click on a Mac. Windows machines usually come with distinctive buttons on the mouse. On a Mac, things are a bit more hidden.
The trackpad on a Macbook (or the Magic Trackpad) is a single piece of brushed aluminum. The newer MacBooks come with a Force Trackpad that emulates a click and provides haptic feedback (the previous generations would actually click).
No matter which trackpad you’re using, right-clicking on a MacBook is simple. Just tap or click (press down) with two fingers.
If the two-finger tap doesn’t work for you, or if you want to change the action, you can do so from System Preferences.
Click on the “Apple” button from the menu bar and then select the “System Preferences” option.
Select the “Trackpad” button.
In the “Point & Click” section, click on the drop-down menu below the “Secondary Click” option. If you want, you can switch to the “Click in Bottom Right Corner” or the “Click in Bottom Left Corner” option.
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Google Home and Amazon Echo devices have excellent microphone arrays. If yours seem never to hear you, the problem might not be the speaker or your voice. It might be where you put the device. Better placement may improve its performance.
Smart speakers, like the Google Home and Amazon Echo, are actually pretty dumb devices on a local level. They amount to a speaker, some microphones, and just enough computer to listen for a wake word. All the rest of the intelligence comes from the cloud.
But, even cloud cloud-powered, that intelligence doesn’t do much if the speaker can’t hear you.
Smart speakers have multiple microphones built to listen to everything around them. But, if you put the speaker in the wrong location, those microphones may not work optimally. But that’s ok; it’s an easy fix. Just move your smart speaker. It’s just a matter of knowing where to move it.
Knowing where to put a smart speaker begins with understanding its microphones. Thanks to the fine folks at iFixit, we know exactly how the Amazon Echo and Google Home are set up. Each features multiple microphones—seven for the Echo and two for the Google Home—arranged on a circular circuit board. The internal speakers also follow the same circular format.
That means if you place a smart speaker against the wall, you run the risk of blocking some of its microphones from hearing your voice. Worse yet, it may hear an echo of your voice hitting the wall and bouncing to its microphones. Similarly, any sound your smart speaker puts out goes in all directions, which means it will hit closeby walls and bounce off, giving your music a muddy sound.
Because of that microphone and speaker arrangement, the best location for your smart speaker is close to the center of the room as possible, preferably with few obstructions. Achieving that may be somewhat difficult if you plop your Echo or Google Home on a coffee table, for instance, as the power cord may trip someone.
You could consider mounting an Echo Dot or Nest Hub Mini (formerly Google Home Mini) to the ceiling. You can find mounts for both devices, and once you have it in place, you can run the power cord to the closest outlet.
With a ceiling mount, not only can you choose a spot very close to the room, you’re likely to have few obstructions like furniture in the way. Depending on the ceiling mount you use, it may also make the speaker more discreet, too.
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Google Cloud Print is the next Google service to go away. After a decade in beta, Google announced Cloud Print “will no longer be supported” after 2020. Google says it’s time to migrate away from Cloud Print.
Google’s cloud printing service lets you print from anywhere—even over the internet. When you printed to a Cloud Print printer, the print jobs are stored in a queue in your Google account. They’re then sent to a printer connected to your account. Some printers had native Cloud Print support, but Google also made Cloud Print available in Google Chrome. You could install Google Chrome on a PC, enable Cloud Print in its settings, and then print to a printer connected to that PC over the internet.
Cloud Print was once crucial for Google because Chromebooks didn’t have native printing support—they needed Cloud Print to print. Times have changed, and Chrome OS now has native printing support. Google Cloud Print is no longer crucial for Chrome OS. It seems it’s no longer crucial for Google as a company, either.
This announcement was buried in a Google support document:
Cloud Print, Google’s cloud-based printing solution that has been in beta since 2010, will no longer be supported as of December 31, 2020. Beginning January 1, 2021, devices across all operating systems will no longer be able to print using Google Cloud Print. We recommend that over the next year, you identify an alternative solution and execute a migration strategy.
Google’s alternative recommendations here are intended for enterprise users with Chrome OS devices. Administrators can use Chrome Enterprise‘s admin console to manage thousands of printers in an organization. Administrators will also be able to configure external CUPS print servers, so organizations that need to route print jobs from Chromebooks have options.
But what about devices that aren’t Chromebooks? Google’s recommendations aren’t much help:
For environments besides Chrome OS, or in multi-OS scenarios, we encourage you to use the respective platform’s native printing infrastructure and/or partner with a print solutions provider.
Should you need to see which version of Chrome OS your Chromebook is running, you can view it and a bunch of other detailed information about the OS in the Settings app. Here’s how to find it.
After you sign in to your account, click on the clock in the bottom right to open the system tray and notification panel. From there, click on the Settings cog.
Next, click the hamburger menu icon and then click on “About Chrome OS” at the bottom of the menu.
This is where you can see the current version of Chrome OS you’re running. If your system isn’t updated, here is where you update your Chromebook.
RELATED: How to Update Your Chromebook
Shortcuts is now a stock app in iOS 13, iPadOS 13, and beyond. Thanks to Apple’s stricter rules, any shortcut you download from the internet is blocked. Here’s how you can allow untrusted shortcuts on your iPhone or iPad.
If you haven’t yet, you should explore the Gallery section in the Shortcuts app and try out some shortcuts on your iPhone or iPad.
Once you get into them, you’ll want to download and install third-party shortcuts from the web. People also create and share shortcuts, so you don’t have to build everything from scratch.
You can find shortcuts for various things, like saving a webpage as PDF or quickly searching a website.
RELATED: What Are iPhone Shortcuts and How Do I Use Them?
As we mentioned above, the Shortcuts app puts a blanket ban on any shortcut you download from the web for privacy reasons. If you’re okay with giving unverified shortcuts access to your device, you can disable this restriction.
The toggle to enable Untrusted Shortcuts in the Settings app only appears when you try to import a shortcut. So, to get started, open a shortcut page in Safari and tap “Get Shortcut,” or use this Metadata Remover shortcut.
When the “Shortcut Can’t Be Opened” popup appears, tap “OK.”
Slack is a popular communication service primarily used in workplace environments. The defaults are sensible, and it looks pretty. However, you can personalize your Slack account, so it looks and acts the way you want it to.
Being able to see what someone looks like is very useful, especially for remote teams. You can add a photo or avatar to help people get to know you.
To add a picture (if you’re using a company workspace, make sure to follow your company’s guidelines), click the arrow next to the workspace name to open the main menu, and then select the “Profile & Account” option.
You then see your profile on the right side of the workspace. To change information about yourself that other users can see, click “Edit Profile.”
Click “Upload an Image.”
