IT DEVICES

Safari Running Slow on Your Mac?

Apple touts Safari as the fastest
 browser out there, which may be true on iOS, but I regularly use Chrome
 on my Mac because Safari is just too slow. Sometimes a webpage won’t 
load or I won’t be able to navigate back and forth between pages or I 
can’t scroll without lagging.
It’s extremely frustrating considering Safari comes included with OS X
 and you expect it to just work. When it does, it’s a great browser, but
 when it doesn’t, you literally have to switch to a new browser.

In this article, I’ll mention all possible ways you can go about 
trying to speed up Safari on your Mac. If you have your own suggestions,
 feel free to let us know in the comments.

<h2>
Method 1 – Cache, History, Extensions</h2>
If you’re a heavy web user and you don’t have a lot of space left on 
your Mac, it might be worth emptying the cache, disabling extensions and
 clearing up the history to ease the load on Safari. In order to do 
this, you first have to go to Safari and then Preferences.

Click on the Advanced tab and then check the Show Develop menu in menu bar box at the bottom of the dialog.

Exit the Preferences dialog and click on Develop in the Safari menu. Go ahead and click on Empty Caches. Once the cache is empty, click again on Develop and choose Disable Extensions.

Finally, click on Safari and instead of Preferences like we chose above, click on Clear History.

In the drop-down box, make sure to choose all history and then click the Clear History button.

<h2>
Method 2 – Manually Clear Cache.DB File</h2>
The above steps should clear the cache in Safari, but if something is
 not working properly, it may not do so properly. In this case, you can 
manually do it. Open Finder, then click on Go and Go To Folder at the bottom.

Now copy and paste the following path into the text box and click Go.

<pre>~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db</pre>
<a href="http://11986-presscdn-0-77.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/safari-cache.png" rel="attachment wp-att-59527"><img alt="safari cache" class="lazy size-full wp-image-59527 aligncenter" data-original="http://11986-presscdn-0-77.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/safari-cache.png" height="127" itemprop="image" src="http://11986-presscdn-0-77.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/safari-cache.png" style="display: block;" width="429" /></a>

Finally, right-click on the Cache.db file and choose Move to Trash. Make sure Safari is closed when you are doing this step.

<h2>
Method 3 – Install Latest OS X Version</h2>
I’ve noticed that quite a few people who purchase Macs simply do not 
update their systems to the latest version of OS X. Even though we are 
on El Capitan right now, I have friends running on Mountain Lion, 
Mavericks, Yosemite, and even Snow Leopard!

If you don’t update OS X, you won’t get the latest version of Safari 
either. This means you could be stuck several versions behind and will 
be missing out on all the improvements and optimizations of the newest 
version.

The simplest way to upgrade is to go to the App Store and click on 
the link for the latest version of OS X, which is usually on the 
right-hand side.

<h2>
Method 4 – Turn Dashboard Off</h2>
If you’re still using an older Mac (2010 or earlier), you might have a
 graphics card issue. You can try something simple to see if it helps in
 Safari. I’m talking about disabling the Dashboard feature in Mission 
Control.

To do this, open System Preferences and then click on Mission Control. In the drop-down next to Dashboard, select Off.

This is not some surefire fix, but it has worked for some people, 
including myself. I have a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro and the dashboard was 
definitely slowing things down.

<h2>
Method 5 – Change Search Settings</h2>
Another thing you can try is to change the search settings in Safari. Open Preferences in Safari and then click on the Search tab.

Try changing the search engine to Bing, restarting Safari and see if 
there is any difference in the speed. Change it back to Google and then 
check again. You can also try unchecking all the options like search 
engine suggestions, Safari suggestions, quick website search, preload 
top hit, etc. to see if that makes a difference.

Sometimes on a very slow Internet connection, all of these extra features may cause Safari to be even slower.

<h2>
Method 6 – Change Network Service Order</h2>
If you have a machine that is connected to both WiFi and Ethernet, 
your issue could be caused by being connected to the network in two 
different ways. To see your connections, go to System Preferences and then click on Network.

You could try disconnecting one network source and seeing if that 
makes a difference or not. Switch to only the other one and test too. If
 you want to keep both connected, read on.

By default, one connection will get priority over the other. As you 
can see above, my WiFi connection was getting higher priority than the 
Ethernet connection. You can change this by clicking on the little 
settings icon (gear) at the bottom of the list box.

Click on Set Service Order and another popup will appear where you can reorder the connections by dragging and dropping.

I moved Ethernet to the top and then clicked OK. After that, make sure you click Apply to on the System Preferences dialog.

<h2>
Method 7 – Delete Preferences File</h2>
This probably won’t make much of a difference, but it’s worth a shot. Go to Finder, click on Go and then Go to Folder.  Type in the following path:

<pre>~/Library/Preferences</pre>
Scroll down the list till you see com.apple.Safari.plist and delete that file.

<h2>
Method 8 – Use Different DNS Settings</h2>
Sometimes it may not be Safari causing the issue, but your DNS 
settings. By default, you’ll be using the DNS provided by your ISP, 
which is fine most of the time. However, using a public DNS might result
 in faster browsing.

My favorite is Google Public DNS, which I use on all my computers. Check out my article on the <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/cool-websites/free-dns-server/" target="_blank">best public DNS servers</a> you can use for free.  To change the DNS server for your connection on OS X, you need to open System Preferences, click on Network, select the connection and then click on Advanced.

Go ahead and click on the little + icon and then type in the IP 
addresses of the new DNS servers. Using Google has sped up my browsing 
not only in Safari, but also other browsers.

<h2>
Method 9 – Log Into Another Account</h2>
Sometimes the problem is with the user account you are currently 
using. It’s worth creating another user account (takes 1 min), logging 
into that account and then running Safari. If it’s suddenly faster, then
 there is a problem with your user account. You can try to fix the 
problem by using Disk Utility. You can go to Spotlight and type in Disk 
Utility to open the dialog quickly.

Click on your hard drive in the left hand pane and then click on the First Aid tab. You’ll be asked if you want to run First Aid on your hard drive, so click Run.

<h2>
Method 10 – Reinstall OS X</h2>
This may sound a little extreme, but it’s kind of similar to how you 
have to reinstall Windows every year or so because it becomes so 
bloated. Unfortunately, OS X suffers from some of the same issues, 
especially if you have always kept upgrading to the latest version of OS
 X without doing a clean install.

I upgraded from Mountain Lion to Mavericks to Yosemite to El Capitan 
before doing a fresh install of El Capitan, which made things 
significantly faster. It’s definitely worth a shot because it also made 
every other app load a lot faster too.

Those are about all the possible solutions I could find to fix a slow
 Safari problem. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to let us 
know in the comments

Troubleshooting Safari Running Slow on Your Mac?

Apple touts Safari as the fastest browser out there, which may be true on iOS, but I regularly use Chrome on my Mac because Safari is just...

How to Get Started with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

1:03 PM Unknown 0

If you’re like me, you’ve 
probably heard of Raspberry Pi and how it can be used to create your own
 DIY projects like setting up a home media server or controlling a robot
 or monitoring the weather. If you like to tinker around with 
electronics, Raspberry Pi is a great starting point for beginners or 
advanced users.
If you’re an electrical engineer, you probably already know what to 
kind of Raspberry Pi to buy, how to set it up, program it, etc. If 
you’re a geek like me, but have never messed around with anything like 
Raspberry Pi or Arduino, the choice can be a little more confusing.

<h2>
Which Raspberry Pi to Buy?</h2>
This is not going to be an extensive comparison of the models because
 there are already a lot of sites that have covered that topic. Instead,
 I’ll break it down into very simple terms. As of today, if you look at 
the official <a href="https://www.raspberrypi.org/" target="_blank">Raspberry Pi website</a>, you have the following models:

The newest and most capable Raspberry Pi product is the Raspberry Pi 3
 Model B, which was released in February of 2016. The previous model was
 the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, which was release in February of 2015. 
There are only three differences between the Pi 3 and Pi 2 Model B:

<ol>
<li>System on a Chip (SoC) Version</li>
<li>1.2 GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 on Pi 3 vs 900 MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 on Pi 2</li>
<li>802.11n wireless and Bluetooth 4.1 on Pi 3</li>
</ol>
Everything else is exactly the same, including the price! The Pi 1 
Model A+ was released in November of 2014 and is still used because it 
is a very low-power device, which is a requirement for some types of 
projects. The Raspberry Pi Zero, Sense Hat and Compute Module are all 
geared to industrial applications or advanced hobbyists.

So basically, in my opinion, if you are new to Raspberry Pi and DIY 
projects in general, the best option is the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B 
because it costs the same as the Pi 2 Model B, but is much faster and 
has more tech on the board.

It’s also the easiest to get started with in terms of setup and ease 
of use. The board by itself costs $35, but it’s only the board and 
literally nothing else, not even a power supply.

<h2>
Raspberry Pi Kit vs No Kit</h2>
Again, if you know what you’re doing, buying the board may be all you
 need. However, if you have no clue how to get started with one of these
 boards, like me, then it might be worth spending some extra money and 
purchasing a kit.

Now if you search for Raspberry Pi 3 kits online, you’ll get a bunch 
of results ranging from $60 to $150. That’s because there is everything 
from a starter kit to a media center kit to a camera kit to a weather 
kit. So which one should you buy?

Well, if you want to spend the least amount of money and you have no 
idea what kind of project you want to start, then I suggest purchasing 
only a starter kit. All starter kits pretty much come with the same 
essential parts:

<ul>
<li>Raspberry Pi 3 Model B board</li>
<li>1 microSD card with NOOBS preloaded</li>
<li>1 enclosure</li>
<li>1 power supply</li>
<li>1 HDMI cable (not all kits)</li>
</ul>
After that, it really depends on the starter kit or pack. Some are a 
bit more expensive and come with a whole bunch of other parts like a 
breadboard or jumper wires. If you plan on purchasing a kit, here are my
 four recommendations from cheapest to most expensive:

<ol>
<li>$59.99 – <a href="http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/83-16561RK" target="_blank">MCM Raspberry Pi 3 Starter Kit</a></li>
<li>$69.99 – <a href="http://amzn.com/B00MV6TAJI" target="_blank">Virlos Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit</a></li>
<li>$74.99 – <a href="http://amzn.com/B01C6Q2GSY" target="_blank">CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit</a></li>
<li>$99.99 – <a href="https://www.adafruit.com/products/3058" target="_blank">Adafruit Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Starter Pack</a></li>
</ol>
<a href="http://11986-presscdn-0-77.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/virlos-raspberry-pi-kit.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-59589"><img alt="virlos raspberry pi kit" class="lazy size-full wp-image-59589 aligncenter" data-original="http://11986-presscdn-0-77.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/virlos-raspberry-pi-kit.jpg" height="650" itemprop="image" src="http://11986-presscdn-0-77.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/virlos-raspberry-pi-kit.jpg" style="display: block;" width="650" /></a>

For me, I ended up going with the Vilros Starter Kit because it also 
included a good quality HDMI cable and two aluminum heat sinks.

<h2>
How to Setup a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B</h2>
Once you get your kit, let’s go ahead and set it up. First, open the 
package and take out all of the contents. Here is my starter pack with 
the board and accessories.

The first thing we want to do is install the two heat sinks onto your
 Pi 3 board. Note that it’s not a requirement to use heat sinks and a 
lot of the kits don’t even include them. However, if you plan to keep 
your board running for long periods of time while performing intensive 
CPU or graphical tasks, then the heat sinks will reduce the chance of 
the board overheating.

Above is a close up look at the Pi 3 board. To install the heat 
sinks, just peel off the tape at the bottom and stick them on according 
to the instructions provided. For reference, here is what my board looks
 like with the two heat sinks installed.

After this, you should take out the microSD card and insert it into 
the slot, which is located on the bottom of the board on the opposite 
side of the USB and Ethernet ports. It’s a tiny slot, so be careful when
 inserting the card.

Next, we need to put the Pi 3 into the provided enclosure. Depending 
on what type of enclosure comes with your kit, the instructions will 
normally be in a separate document. In my case with the Vilros 
enclosure, I had to open it and then insert the board in the bottom 
section as shown below.

After that, I put on the two sides and then the cover at the top. 
Once your board is safely in the enclosure, we can start connecting 
cables to it. There are basically five things that need to be connected:
 a USB keyboard, a USB mouse, an HDMI cable, Wi-Fi or Ethernet and the 
power cable. It’s worth noting that if you have an SD card with NOOBS, 
you don’t really have to be connected to the Internet.

So what is NOOBS? It stands for New Out Of Box Software
 and it basically makes installing an operating system onto your Pi 3 
really easy. I’ll talk about that shortly. First, here is my Pi 3 
connected and ready to be powered on.

Note that once you plug in the power, the Pi 3 will turn on 
immediately, so make sure you do that last. Also, make sure that the 
monitor is set to the correct HDMI input. If your board isn’t broken or 
damaged, you should see the following NOOBS screen after a few moments.

You have a couple of options when it comes to installing an OS on 
your Pi 3. Raspbian is a Linux operating system based on Debian, but 
optimized for the Raspberry Pi. Kodi Entertainment Center is an open 
source home theater software package and OSMC is an open source media 
center. If you want to use your new Pi 3 as a tiny media streaming box 
connected to your HDTV, then choose either one of those.

The nice thing about NOOBS is that it remains on your SD card even 
after you install an operating system. When booting up the Pi, just hold
 down the SHIFT key to bring up the NOOBS menu again. You can easily 
install another operating system whenever you like. So feel free to test
 stuff out and don’t worry about making the wrong choice in the 
beginning.

In my case, I want to eventually try to program my Pi, so I installed
 Raspbian, though you can also install Windows 10 IoT Core, if you are a
 Windows person.

It might take a while for the operating system to install because of 
the data transfer speed. Once complete, the device will restart and boot
 into the operating system you installed. All went well on mine and I 
was on the Raspbian desktop about 45 minutes after powering up my Pi 3.

The desktop is very simple and easy to use. There is a button called 
Menu that lets you browse installed applications and configure settings.
 Next to that is a web browser button, file manager button and Terminal 
button. This post was an introduction and only meant to get you up and 
running with a new Pi 3. Future posts will cover more advanced topics as
 I explore them myself! If you have any questions, feel free to comment

TIPS How to Get Started with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard of Raspberry Pi and how it can be used to create your own DIY projects like setting up a home med...

Hide One Friend From Another on Facebook

1:02 PM Unknown 0

On Facebook, once you friend 
someone, they normally can see all of your friends by default. This is 
not very helpful if you want to friend someone, but don’t want 
that friend to know about another friend that you may have. Maybe you’re
 friends with two people who were together, but are now split up and 
hate each other.
Is there a way to prevent a friend from seeing another friend of 
yours? Well yes and no. As of right now, you can only block a friend 
from seeing all of your other friends. There is no way to block a friend
 from seeing just one friend. You have to hide your entire friend list 
from one or both friends so that they can’t see each other.

You can also configure it so that only you can see your list of 
friends and no one else can, but that’s a bit hardcore if you just want 
to prevent two friends from seeing each other. I’ll show you how to 
configure both options below.

So if you need to prevent someone from seeing who your other friends are, then you can follow the steps below to setup Facebook.

<h2>
Hide Friends from Each Other on Facebook</h2>
First, click on your name at the top to view your profile. Now click 
on the little down arrow icon that is located at the top right of the Friends section and click on Edit Privacy. The Friends section will appear along the left-hand side below Photos.

Note that you can also click on your name, then click on the Friends tab at the top and then click on the little pencil icon at the far right. The only option will be Edit Privacy.

This will bring up the Edit Privacy dialog. Go ahead and click on the little icon to the right and you’ll see a few options. If you click on Only Me,
 you’ll be the only person who can view your friend list. This is a bit 
extreme because it means NO ONE will be able to see who your friends 
are.

If you want to just prevent ONE person from seeing your entire list of friends, you need to click on Custom.

Under the Don’t share with section, go ahead and 
type in the name of the person you want to hide your friend list from. 
If you are trying to prevent two of your friends from seeing each other 
on your friend list, you’ll have to put in both of their names in the Don’t share with box so that neither can see your friend list.

However, like I said before, this means they won’t be able to see ANY
 of your friends, which might make them a bit suspicious as to why 
you’re blocking them from seeing your list of friends. Hopefully, 
Facebook will come out with a feature where you can hide one friend from
 another individually. But as of right now, this will get the job done.

Also, be sure to check out my previous post on how to <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/hide-your-facebook-status-from-specific-friends/" target="_blank">hide your Facebook status from just one friend or specific friends</a>.
 Lastly, if you want to have private conversations with smaller groups 
using Facebook, it’s best to create a private or secret group. A secret 
group is nice because only members can find the group, see who is in it 
and post to it. If you have any questions, post a comment.

TIPS Hide One Friend From Another on Facebook

On Facebook, once you friend someone, they normally can see all of your friends by default. This is not very helpful if you want to friend...

How to View & Take Photos in Widescreen (16:9) on iPhone

12:59 PM Unknown 0

If you have any of the newer 
iPhones, you have probably noticed that when you take a picture with the
 camera, it always has black bars on either side of the image. The 
iPhone screen has different aspect ratio than the photo and therefore 
the image doesn’t fill up the entire screen.
For someone like me, this is just really an annoyance. Yes, there are
 advantages to the way Apple does it, which I will explain below, but it
 is still frustrating that I can’t enjoy a full widescreen shot on my 
iPhone.

Luckily, there are a couple of ways you can take and view your 
already taken photos in widescreen format on the iPhone. In this post, 
I’ll show you how to edit photos so that they can be widescreen and how 
to take a photo in widescreen, though the latter option comes with some 
caveats.

<h2>
Aspect Ratios</h2>
Before we get into the details, let’s try to understand why photos 
taken on the iPhone will have black bars on either side of the photo 
like shown below:

The iPhone takes photos with an aspect ratio of 4:3. Why? Well, 
apparently that is the preferred ratio in still photography because it 
captures more pixels in the picture and is the preferred format for 
print, etc. If they were to use a 16:9 ratio for photos, then you 
wouldn’t be able to capture as much in each shot.

Have you ever noticed that when you switch from photo to video on the
 iPhone, the camera zooms in? That is because HD video is shot at the 
16:9 aspect ratio and therefore fills up the entire screen. The downside
 is that the shot has to be cropped and the field of view is 
considerably less.

In my opinion, Apple should have added an option to take 16:9 photos 
also and just given a warning to users that the resolution would be less
 than the max resolution possible with a 4:3 ratio picture. In my tests,
 a max resolution photo in 4:3 format from my iPhone 6S Plus was 4032 x 
3024.

In iOS, there are two ways to get your photos into 16:9 widescreen 
ratio: either by editing the photo or by taking a picture while you are 
taking a video. If you edit a 4:3 photo and convert it to 16:9, the 
resulting resolution is 4032 x 2268. If you take a 16:9 photo 
while taking a video, the resolution ends up being 3840×2160.

So what does that mean? Basically, if you like the widescreen format,
 just keep taking photos in the standard 4:3 ratio and simply edit them 
to 16:9 at a later point like I did above. You’ll have to crop the image
 a little bit (height-wise), but you’ll get the highest resolution 
photo.

<h2>
Widescreen Images on iPhone</h2>
OK, so now that you understand the mechanics behind how the photos 
are taken and displayed on your phone, let’s talk about the two ways to 
get widescreen photos. The first way is the simplest, but it requires 
you to take a video.

Open the Camera app and switch to video. When you 
start taking a video, you’ll see a white circle appear at the bottom of 
the screen. This allows you to take a picture while recording a video.

There are a couple of reasons why this isn’t the best way to get a 
widescreen photo. Firstly, you have to take a video in order to take the
 widescreen shot. Obviously, you can just delete the video later, but 
who wants to keep taking videos every time they want to take a photo?

Secondly, like I mentioned earlier, the resolution of the photo taken
 while in camera mode is less than if you simply edited the 4:3 standard
 photo. So let’s talk about how to edit a photo. Open the Photos app and tap on the photo you want to edit.

At the top right, go ahead and tap on the Edit link.

Now tap on the first icon towards the top, which is for rotating and cropping the image.

A few more icons will appear along with a wheel sort of thing that 
you can use to rotate the image. In our case, we need to tap on the 
aspect ratio button at the bottom, right next to the Cancel button.

Now you’ll get a popup with several different aspect ratios to choose from. You need to scroll all the way down to find the 16:9 ratio and tap on it.

Finally, you have to crop the image by moving it around with your 
finger. The portion that is inside the box is what will become your new 
widescreen photo.

Tap Done and your photo will now be in widescreen 
format! That’s about all there is to it. Unfortunately, there is no way 
to do this on a batch or set or photos in one go. You have to manually 
edit each photo that you want in widescreen format.

<h2>
Camera+</h2>
If that sounds like too much of a pain, then you can download an app from the App Store called <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/camera+/id329670577?mt=8" target="_blank">Camera+</a>. You can change the shooting mode to 16:9 and have the images automatically stored in the normal camera roll.

Just tap on the little plus icon next to the big white circle button 
and then choose the widescreen icon in the menu that pops out. To save 
images to your camera roll, tap on the little hamburger icon (three 
lines), then tap on AutoSave and choose Camera Roll.

This is probably the easiest way to ensure that all your photos are 
taken in widescreen format without having to manually do anything else. 
The resolution of the image was also 4032×2268, so it’s also the max 
resolution possible in that format. You can do a lot of other great 
stuff with that app, so it’s totally worth the cost if you like 
widescreen images all the time.

Hopefully, these tips will help you understand and enjoy the photos 
you take on your iPhone. If you have any questions, feel free to 
comment.

Troubleshooting How to View & Take Photos in Widescreen (16:9) on iPhone

If you have any of the newer iPhones, you have probably noticed that when you take a picture with the camera, it always has black bars on ...

How to Lock a Note with a Password or Touch ID in iOS

12:58 PM Unknown 0

With the release of the latest 
version of iOS, you can now protect your notes in the Notes app using 
either a password or Touch ID. For me, this was really great news 
because I use the Notes app a lot on my iPhone, but hate the fact that I
 have to use a different app like Evernote when creating sensitive notes
 that I want to protect.
Overall, the feature works fairly well, though there are some strange
 quirks that I hope get ironed out over the next few iOS releases. In 
this article, I’m going to walk you through the steps for creating a 
locked note in iOS and how to use them properly.

<h2>
How Locked Notes Works in iOS</h2>
Before we get into the actual process, it’s important to go over how 
locked notes really work in iOS. Firstly, all notes will be locked using
 a single password and that is a requirement. If you want to create 
locked notes, you have to supply a password.

This password will be used for all your locked notes. You can’t 
easily create different passwords for different notes. It’s possible to 
have different passwords on different notes, but it’s not how the 
feature is supposed to work and I’ll explain below how this situation 
can occur.

Secondly, notes can also be locked using Touch ID. Any fingerprint 
that can unlock your phone will be able to unlock your notes if you 
enable Touch ID for locked notes. If you use Touch ID, you don’t have to
 enter the password, though you can if you like. It’s pretty much the 
same way you can use Touch ID on your lock screen or enter your 
passcode.

Lastly, there are a few strange quirks. For example, even if you lock
 a note, the title of the note is visible in the Notes app. So when 
creating a secure note, make sure the first line is something that you 
don’t mind others being able to see.

The other odd quirk is that you can delete a locked note without any 
authentication. So if someone get access to your phone, even though they
 can’t view the note, they can delete it! In my opinion, it should 
require the same authentication for deleting locked notes as it does for
 viewing.

<h2>
How to Create a Locked Note</h2>
In order to create a locked note in iOS, open your Notes app, create a new note or open an existing one and then tap on the Share button at the top.

On the popup overlay, you’ll see several buttons. One of them should be Lock Note.

Now the next screen you see will depend on whether or not you already
 have configured a password for Notes in the settings. If you haven’t, 
you’ll get the following screen where you need to enter a password and 
choose whether or not you want to enable Touch ID for locking and 
unlocking notes.

If you have already setup your password, then you’ll simply get a 
popup asking to use Touch ID or enter your password to lock the note.

After either of the screens above, you’ll see a lock animation appear on your note that says Lock Added.

This simply means that a lock has been added to the note, but the 
note is not fully locked yet. If you look up at the top of the note, 
you’ll see a little lock icon that is in the open position.

In order to fully lock the note, you have to tap on that icon. At 
this point, the contents will be hidden and you’ll see a message saying This Note is Locked.

If you go back to the list of all your notes, you’ll see a small lock
 icon next to the notes that have been locked. It’s worth noting that 
when you unlock one note, all the other notes get unlocked too. When you
 lock one note, all the other notes get locked too.

As you can see, the titles of the locked notes are still visible, as I
 had mentioned earlier. To see the contents of a locked note, just tap 
on it and then tap on the lock icon at the top right or tap on View Note under the This note is locked message. You’ll either have to use Touch ID if that is enabled or enter the password.

Finally, once the note is unlocked, but it still has a lock added it 
to, you can remove the lock by tapping the share button again. Instead 
of the Lock Note button, you’ll see a Remove Lock button.

<h2>
Change Password or Reset Password</h2>
Since one password is used to protect all your notes, you might want 
to change your password or reset it, in case you forgot the password. 
When you change a password, it will change the password for all future 
notes and for all previously locked notes.

If you reset the password, it will allow you to choose a new 
password, but only for newly locked notes. All your older notes that 
were locked using the older password will remain locked and can only be 
unlocked with the old password. You won’t be able to unlock those older 
locked notes using Touch ID once you reset the password.

To change the password for all notes, go to Settings, then Notes and tap on Password.

Tap on Change Password and then enter the old 
password followed by the new password. Now all your newly created locked
 notes and previously locked notes will be using this new password.

If you tap on Reset Password, you’ll have to enter 
your iCloud password before it’ll let you enter a new password. As 
mentioned earlier, the notes that already had passwords will not be 
affected. To unlock the older notes, you’ll need to remember the older 
password.

If you do reset the password and then open an older note that was 
locked with an older password, you’ll get a message asking if you would 
like to update the old password on that note to the new one. Note that 
if you do this, it will update all the older notes to the new password.

Lastly, as long as OS X is updated to the latest version, you’ll be able to lock and unlock notes in the Notes app on OS X too.

On OS X, you’ll have to enter the password since Touch ID is not 
supported. Overall, the lock notes feature works fairly well in iOS and 
OS X, but you do have to be mindful of the quirks and try not to forget 
your password. If you have any questions, feel free to comment.

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Set Default Folder When Opening Explorer in Windows 10

12:58 PM Unknown 0

After upgrading to Windows 10 
recently, I noticed that whenever I opened Explorer, it would always 
show me Quick Access. I like the new Quick Access feature, but I 
preferred to have Explorer open to This PC instead.
For me, being able to access the different drives on the computer and
 my network devices was far more important than accessing frequently 
used folders or recently opened files. It’s a useful feature, but I 
don’t mind having to click once to access it.

In this post, I’ll show you how to change the default folder from Quick Access to This PC
 when opening Explorer. In addition, I’ll also show you a trick whereby 
you can set any folder to be the default folder when opening Explorer in
 Windows 10.

<h2>
Set Default Folder to This PC</h2>
To change the setting, open Explorer, click on File and then click on Change folder and search options.

In the dialog that pops up, you should already be on the General tab. At the very top, you’ll see Open File Explorer to where you can select from This PC and Quick Access.

Just pick whichever folder you prefer and you’re good to go! Now when
 you open Explorer, you should see it open to This PC selected instead 
of Quick Access.

If you need to do this on many machines in a corporate environment, 
you’ll be happy to know that there is a registry entry that controls 
this setting also. Just navigate to the following key:

<pre>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced</pre>
On the right hand side, look for a DWORD key named Launch To. 1 means This PC and 2 means Quick Access.

Finally, let’s talk about how we can configure Explorer to open up to any folder as the default folder.

<h2>
Set Any Folder as Default for Explorer</h2>
Since there really isn’t any official way to do this, we have to kind
 of hack Windows to get it to do what we want. I’ve tested it out and 
the process seems to work just fine. To get started, find your folder 
and create a shortcut to the folder on your desktop.

For example, if I wanted to use the Pictures folder as my default folder, I would right-click on it, choose Send to and then click on Desktop (create shortcut).
 Next, we need to copy that shortcut into a special location in Windows.
 First, let’s open Explorer and go to that special location. Just copy 
and paste the following path into the address bar in another Explorer 
window:

<pre>%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar</pre>
Make sure to press Enter after you paste the path into Explorer. 
Depending on what else is pinned to your taskbar, you might see 
shortcuts to several programs here, but you should always see a File Explorer shortcut.

Now go ahead and drag the shortcut that we just created from your 
desktop into the special folder you have open in Explorer. Now we have 
to do one last thing. Go ahead and delete the File Explorer shortcut and
 rename the Pictures Shortcut to File Explorer. If you chose a different folder than Pictures, then change whatever the name of that shortcut is to File Explorer.

That’s about it! Now open File explorer from your taskbar and you 
should be viewing the contents of whichever folder you chose to be the 
default folder.

It’s worth noting that this little trick will only work when you 
click on the Explorer icon on your taskbar. If you open Explorer by 
double-clicking on This PC on the desktop or by clicking on Start and 
then File Explorer, you’ll either see This PC or Quick Access, depending
 on which option is chosen in the settings.

If you want to undo what we just did above, all you have to do is right-click on Explorer in the taskbar and choose Unpin from taskbar.
 After that, just drag the This PC icon from your desktop and drop it 
onto the taskbar again. This will create a new Explorer shortcut and 
it’ll work normally.

<h2>
Pin Folders to Quick Access</h2>
If you don’t like any of the two options above, you do have one other
 choice in Windows 10. You could use the new pinned folders feature that
 is associated with Quick Access. When you open Explorer, you’ll see a 
pin icon next to several folders under Quick Access.

The Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, This PC and Music 
folders are pinned by default in Windows 10. If you want to remove any 
of them, just right-click and choose Unpin from Quick Access.

However, if you want one click access to any folder on your computer,
 navigate to that folder, then right-click on Quick Access and choose Pin current folder to Quick Access.

As you can see, this is how I pinned the Program Files folder to my 
Quick Access section. Using this method, you don’t have to resort to any
 hacks and you can also quickly access any folder on your system with 
two clicks.

Lastly, you can also get to that pinned folder quickly by simply 
right-clicking on the File Explorer icon in your taskbar and choosing 
your pinned folder, which will show up in the jumplist.

So in summary, if you want to change the default folder system-wide, 
you can only pick between This PC and Quick Access. If you use the 
second method involving the shortcut hack, then you have to use the 
shortcut from the taskbar.

Lastly, if you just need quick access to a folder, try using the pin 
to Quick Access option as that will also be system-wide and will remain 
in the left-hand side even as you browse through other folders. If you 
have any questions, post a comment.

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