The author of this post Beyond Life is a regular groovy contributor in the groovyPost community forum and his knowledge of the Android platform is top-notch. This is the first in his series of Android tips and tutorials that will appear here on groovyPost’s front page so welcome to the crew Beyond Life! For this How To I’m using Quadrant on a Samsung Galaxy S i9000, but it should work and look the similar on other Android devices....

There are a lot of reasons why you’d want to turn off Google Now; here’s how to do it. Turning Google Now Off The feature is very easy to enable, so it should be just as easy to turn off. That is indeed the case — if you know where to look. First, start the Google app on your Android device. It’s in the main apps menu. Then, scroll all the way down and tap the three-dots menu button....

Disabling the notification balloons in Windows involves modifying the system registry. You can manually go in and adjust it using the instructions below, or just download our pre-made registry edit. [Download Link] After adding the registry fix, restart your computer to apply it. How to modify the registry manually Disclaimer: Modifying the Windows registry may cause your system to become unstable if done improperly. If you are not comfortable with doing this please just use the pre-made edit above....

In Windows 7 or Vista, click Start and type: msconfig into the search field and hit Enter. The System Configuration windows opens. Select the Boot tab, then check No GUI Boot. Click OK. The next time you restart your system, the Windows splash screen will no longer be displayed, and you’ll go directly to the log in screen. It’s debatable whether this helps Windows boot faster, but at least the annoying screen is gone....

Download Google Your Search History It’s easy to download your search history. Start by going to your Web & Activity page — you might not even know you have one, but you do, and log in to your account. Then click Options (gear icon) in the top right corner of the page and select Download. Next you’ll see the following message from Google. As you can see, it indeed isn’t “the usual yada yada....

Free and Discounted Books There are a lot of places online where you can download free or discounted books. No two services are alike, nor will they satisfy everyone in terms of content. When you can’t find the title you want on one service, check out another. You’re most likely to find your free or discounted titles elsewhere. Public Library Most physical libraries in the United States have partnerships with digital lending services....

Reason for the Factory Reset I finally received my iPad Mini with Retina display in the mail today. When I initially set it up, I restored a previous backup from my old iPad 3 – a backup from early January of this year. Well, I realized that I had a heck of a lot of apps and other data on it then, and I really would rather start fresh. Whether you want to reset your iOS 7 device as a new one, are having hard solving problems, or selling it, you’ll want to reset it to factory settings....

Why would you want to know the version of an app running on your Android device? Well, some features will only work on the latest version. Or on versions “newer than version x.y”. While this is not something you use every day, it’s very handy information when you do need it. There are several ways to go about finding out the version of an app on your phone. We will take a look at some of them below, taking the Deezer streaming service app as an example....

If you’re reading this article, it’s likely a situation that you’re familiar with. Your Chromebook may have power, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to use your Chromebook. You’ll need to start troubleshooting the problem to fix a Chromebook black screen. Don’t jump to any conclusions, as for most users, it’s an easy problem to fix. If you want to know how to fix a Chromebook black screen, follow the steps below....

When this keyboard shortcut stops working, you’ll need to troubleshoot the issue or use a workaround. There are other keys and key combinations you can use. You can also try to fix the Snipping Tool itself. Luckily, there are some things you can do to fix Windows + Shift + S not working on your Windows PC using the following steps. Check Your Keyboard If the keyboard shortcut isn’t working, there could be a problem with the keyboard itself....

It may sound difficult, but once you’ve mastered using pivot tables, anything is possible. Here are some important tips on how to get the most out of pivot tables in Excel. Using Dynamic Data Ranges When you create a pivot table, you use a set range of data (for example, cells A1 to D4). Creating a standard Excel table from your data set before you create a pivot table means that, when you add or remove data, your pivot table should automatically update....

While it’s not included in Windows 10 by default, you can still add it manually by following the steps in this article. Add the Quick Launch Bar to Windows 10 Or, to make things easier, copy and paste the following path into the File Explorer address bar and hit Enter and click the Select Folder button: %appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch If you add several items, just click the arrow icon to bring up the list items you have in the bar....

Change Font Size on iOS Check out these two screenshots featuring the large 40 pt. font size compared to the default font size for Messaging in iOS 6. Which of the two would you prefer to have on your iPhone? If you don’t like either, then you’re still in luck because there is a total of seven font sizes to choose from. To change the font settings in iOS open the Settings menu from the Home Screen....

If you’re like me, you rarely open a link without it being in a new tab. With that pattern of browsing behavior it is easy to have 20-30 tabs open at once, and the measly 10 tabs in your history won’t be enough to fully recover should an accident happen. Let’s change that and add more tabs to this list! Step 1 In Firefox, Type about:config into the address bar and then Click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!...

Now before you get started — take a look at our Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcut Guide. You will want to have that handy after you get the install completed. Ok ready for install? First, download the 32 or 64-bit version of Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO file. Then burn it to a blank DVD with Windows 7 Disc Image Burner or use a third-party tool like ISO Recorder for Vista and XP....

Just like with Microsoft’s Insider Program, you don’t want to put these beta builds on the main devices that you use every day. Typically, beta versions of any software are incomplete and buggy. Which is the nature of the program — so users can report bugs and the developer team can work on fixes. This helps the company work out the kinks before finalizing the OS and rolling it out to the public....

Have you Ever wondered how people make those ORB icons like the on the left or perhaps the Windows 7 ORB icon? Today I’m going to going to show you just how easy it can be using my favorite tool – Adobe Photoshop. To start things off, lets take a look at the process using a How-to Screencast followed by the typical Step-by-Step process. How-To Make a Groovy Orb Icon in Adobe Photoshop – Screencast Step 1 – Choose The Size Of Your Orb This tutorial should work for any edition of Photoshop – even Photoshop CS)....

By default Firefox 4 is set to never remove items from your Downloads list history. No matter how old or how long the list gets, all of your past downloads will be there unless you manually press the Clear List button. What we’re going to do in this post, is make this list clear itself automatically. Let’s get started! Step 1 In Firefox 4, Type about:config into the address bar and Press Enter....

But that doesn’t stop Edge from opening PDFs if you click a link online. The file needs to be downloaded first. If you want a different option, another thing you can do is make Edge download PDF files instead of opening them when you click a PDF link online. Here’s how to make that happen. Make Edge Download PDF Files Online To get started launch Edge and click the Settings and More (three dots) button in the upper right-hand corner and click on Settings....

The cool thing is with a couple of Windows PowerShell commands; you can make them sync up. PowerShell may seem daunting for some, but we’ll show you the code to enter for this task. PowerShell Commands Log in as Administrator to Windows 10 and organize your Start menu the way you want it. Now, hit the Windows key and type: powershell to find it (it should be at the top of the results list)....