Downloading and running Windows Menu Plus Download Windows Menu Plus from MooO’s web site. Windows Menu Plus doesn’t need to be installed; click on the EXE file you downloaded to start. Working with Windows Menu Plus’ options From the notifications area in your taskbar, “Right-click” the Windows Menu Plus icon. Ensure “Turn On” is checked. This will activate Windows Menu Plus, and as long as it’s running in the background, you’ll be able to take advantage of everything it has to offer....

GUnity is a third party application with various options for you to customize the Unity setting. In short, it is the Compiz Config Settings Manager specially for Unity. 1. Download the GUnity .deb file (the deb file is from a non-trusted source. Use with caution). 2. Install (double-click to install) the deb file in your Ubuntu machine. 3. Since GUnity does not add itself to the Applications Menu, the only way to launch it is to press “Alt + F2“, type “gunity” (without the quotes) and press Enter....

If you’re still on the lookout for some Black Friday bargains then look no further as we’re still coming across deals left and right. Now, we’ve come across this fantastic offer on a Lego Sonic the Hedgehog set which used to cost £69.99 but in honour of Black Friday has had its price slashed by 43%, bringing the price down to just £40. And if you’re still bargain hunting then we recommend checking out our best Black Friday deals roundup, which we will keep updating over the next few days until all the deals have run dry, so you’re the first to know about all the best offers on the market....

What’s the difference? If you only have one network on your router, chances are that it is actually broadcasting on both the 2.4GHz (good for long range) and 5GHz (best for short range) bands and using a protocol called “band steering” to let your device switch automatically. If you see two networks, the bands have been split up, and you’ll have to manually choose when to change. There are pros and cons to both....

It’s a situation we find ourselves in here on Make Tech Easier. The team of writers need a place to get together to discussion idea, plan a schedule for articles and make sure two people aren’t writing about the same topics! We’ve tried out various options here, but it is Basecamp and Freedcamp that have proved the most useful. Both have their advantages and disadvantages – it’s very hard to find a tool that’s perfect!...

Top Free FTP Clients 1. CyberDuck The app is available in many different languages, with translations offered by worldwide users. Connecting to a FTP server is a breeze, browsing your remote server is pretty easy, and overall, CyberDuck is really, really simple to use. It gets our vote for the best free FTP client available for OS X today. CyberDuck is also available for Windows. For Mac, it requires OS X 10....

The “about:flags” page allows advanced users to enable and disable the experimental settings and features. Since most of the settings and features in this page can cause instability issues, the page is typically hidden from plain sight. However, it can be easily accessed by simply typing “about:flags” in the address bar. If you are an admin and would like to restrict users from messing with the flags page, here’s how to do so....

What exactly is Blockstack? This decentralized network gives developers an easy way to build decentralization and blockchain technology into their apps and makes it relatively simple for users to have full ownership of their data. The big takeaway here, though, is that there are already very functional alternatives to centralized apps on the blockchain platform. They’re not perfect, of course, and they lack some advanced features and integrations, but if you want to switch your online documents, photos, notes, chats, file storage, surveys, or even your web hosting over to Blockstack apps, you can do it with relatively little friction....

Barely a few weeks have passed, and March continues to be an action-packed month as bugs in LastPass’ browser extensions would allow hackers to grab passwords from unsuspecting users. The Bugs A bug in LastPass’ Google Chrome extension was discovered by Tavis Ormandy, a member of Google’s Project Zero, on Monday. The first bug – which allows hackers to write in code while hijacking your computer’s communication with the server you are logging into and gain access to your passwords – can be found in this report that also contains his proof-of-concept code in case you’re interested....

The Cost of Internet Connectivity As it currently stands, staying connected to the internet implies a cost to the consumer. Most of them happily pay their bills without wondering what’s behind all of those costs and why their bills are probably more expensive than in other countries. For one example, let’s look at the U.S. On average, a consumer will pay approximately $47 per month on an Internet subscription. For that, the average stable downlink speed will be 35....

You can wait for one device to charge a bit before switching to the other, or you can use a dual USB power bank like the one Sabrent offers, which we’ll take a closer look at below. About Sabrent’s 6100mAh Power Bank Sabrent’s very stylish 6100mAh dual USB power bank is advertised as an iPhone and iPad charger, but you can use it for any smartphone and tablet that charges via a micro USB cable....

The good news is that if you have relatively common hardware, Linux will probably work with it, even some fairly complicated devices like 3D-accelerated video cards. On the other hand, wireless networking adapters like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are areas where you still might run into some trouble. Get Computer with Linux pre-installed The easiest way to ensure that your hardware is Linux-compatible is to buy a computer with Linux pre-installed....

Packet-sniffing Packet-sniffers are programs that hunt for and record any unencrypted data being sent or received on a WiFi network. If you are using open WiFi, which has no encryption by default, you should assume that everything you do may be showing up on someone else’s computer. The network itself may be innocent – just your local coffee shop, for example – but all a hacker on the same connection needs to do to spy on you is run a free program....

The official list of recognized Ubuntu derivatives is as follows: Ubuntu GNOME – Ubuntu with the GNOME desktop environment Kubuntu – Ubuntu with the K Desktop environment Lubuntu – Ubuntu that uses LXDE Xubuntu – Ubuntu with the XFCE desktop environment Edubuntu – Ubuntu for education Mythbuntu – Designed for creating a home theatre PC with MythTV Ubuntu Studio – Designed for multimedia editing and creation Ubuntu Kylin – Ubuntu localised for China...

Not surprisingly, there isn’t any shortage of screencasting tools in Linux. What sets Kazam apart from the rest is its omnipresence across repositories of popular Linux distros, which makes it a breeze to install. Furthermore, the tool has a simple, unintimidating and intuitive user interface that helps new users get started, and offers just the right number of tweakable controls to experienced users. Installation To get started, install Kazam from your distro’s package manager....

If only you could create your own VPN between your mobile computer and your home computer. Actually, that process is easier than you might think. Today we’ll discuss how you can use OpenVPN to create a secure connection between a client and server on a Linux machine. Keep in mind that we’ll be creating a routing configuration and not a bridging one, which should be fine for most use cases....

For now, this 3×3 grid is not customizable, which for some is extremely frustrating. What if you rarely or never use many of the “apps” on the launcher? There’s no way to remove them by default. Plus, what if you’d like to add your own custom shortcuts? That cannot be done either. Luckily, the App Launcher Customizer for Google changes all of that. It’s a Google Chrome extension that allows you to customize the App Launcher and add more than 170 Google shortcuts....

Your starting page can be a very useful tool if you let it be. In the past, we have talked about different homepage choices here on Make Tech Easier. All have their pros and cons. Start.io is another option that might just fill your needs. Why you need a start page If you are planning to use a different start page, you should make sure it is better than the one you are already using....

To fix this fragmentation problem, we need to run the disk defragmentation application where it locates the various parts of a file and arranges them in running order. By default, Windows comes with its own set of defragment tool that anyone can use, but it suffers from some drawbacks such as inability to defragment a single selected file and ignores files that are smaller than 64 MB. On the other hand, there is this effective utility named Auslogics Disk Defrag which lets you overcome all of this drawbacks....

The information that it collects is quite detailed and is focused around you CPU, mainboard, memory and general system info about Windows and DirectX. Throughout the rest of the post, I’m going to walk you through getting CPU-Z and harnessing it’s awesome power on your own PC. To get started, head on over to the CPU-Z home page and download the latest version of the software (at the time this article was written, the current version was 1....