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Chromecast Freebies To celebrate the second birthday of the Chromecast, Google is giving owners a couple of promotional offers. First, you can get a free movie rental from Google Play Video. The second offer is access to 90 days of unlimited music streaming via Play Music. Even if you currently don’t own one, you can still get these bonuses when you buy a new Chromecast. To get the free movie rental, you need to purchase and set up your Chromecast by 12/31/2015....

Although this is great news, you will need to keep in mind that 1 Gig is also the total FREE online space given by Google Docs (unlike the 25Gigs from Microsoft’s Skydrive.) What this means is you can essentially fill up all of your free space with just one upload! No doubt this will help give Google a boost in online storage space sales. Let’s look at the some of the other less noticeable updates....

Google Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) Google has offered 2FA or “two-step verification” (2SV) for its accounts for several years. Once enabled, you’ll receive a prompt on your phone to verify whether an attempted login is legitimate. In the blog post, Google exec Mark Risher writes: Soon we’ll start automatically enrolling users in 2SV if their accounts are appropriately configured. (You can check the status of your account in our Security Checkup). Using their mobile device to sign in gives people a safer and more secure authentication experience than passwords alone....

I’ve had a Google Music account since the service was in beta, but I started using it seriously just after I realized the possibilities it has. First of all, you need to know that Google Music is solely a cloud music service, one that allows you to store your music on Google’s servers and access it wherever you like. This is why you get free space for 20,000 songs on your computer (not including the ones you purchase from Google Music – they don’t count towards your storage quota)....

By default all of your Google Chats are simultaneously saved to a folder in Gmail. If you’ve already been chatting it up on Google Talk then you’ll have several conversations in there. Here’s how to take your chats off the record. Open a Google Talk window with anyone on your contacts list. Then in the top-right corner click the drop down menu. Then click Go Off the Record. You’ll see a message at the bottom of the chat window letting you know your chat is off the record....

What’s that, you ask? Well, imagine the fact that Google founder Sergey Brin (who was in the event hall with the attendees), was having a live Google Hangout with a few skydivers. All of them were wearing Glass devices while they jumped off a plane and were followed by bikers doing stunts on the roof and, eventually, getting into the hall. The groovy part was that everyone could see the whole thing through their eyes, using the Google glasses....

Well, first of all, the app does have a new face, and it’s a cleaner one (or so it looks to me) which is the first thing I noticed after applying the update. The next thing I noticed was the drop-down boxes showing the languages have been improved, and the same can be said about the input box. Still, the most interesting feature (even if it’s still in alpha stage) is Conversation Mode....

Granted, today’s announcement is only the start of the Technical Preview; however, it’s the first step in getting Microsoft Office online and in the cloud. So following the link to the “Sign-Up” page I was quickly disappointed to find that all spots in the Technical Preview were filled. Microsoft did provide a link to Sign-Up for early notification regarding the Office 2010/Office Web Apps Beta, however, after a bit of tinkering, I discovered there’s an easy way to get into the Technical Preview ANYWAY!...

After you’ve installed and set up your Windows Home Server, it’s time to start connecting the other computers on your network. Open up Internet Explorer – other browsers work too, but IE provides the best results. Clear the address bar and type: http://[servername]:55000 – replace [servername] with the name of your server. In my example I typed: http://geekserver:55000 then hit Enter. This is connecting to the webpage from your WHS box....

If you’re not a foobar2000 user already, make sure you take a look at our review of this highly customizable and feature-filled music player. If you like to rip your CDs to your hard drive for easy listening, you’re probably annoyed when the ripped tracks don’t have the original album artwork. Well, foobar2000 makes it easy to add. Add Album Artwork to Songs Start by clicking Add Folder in the File menu, at the top of the foobar2000 window....

Add Contacts to Your Favorites on iPhone There is a couple of ways to add a contact to your Favorites list. First, open the Phone app, tap the “Favorites” button, and then add the “+” button at the upper-left corner of the screen. Then you can either scroll through your contacts or search for a specific name. Tap the person you want to add to your favorites and choose the method of contact you use most....

What is DNS? Without the Domain Name System (DNS) in place, you wouldn’t be reading this article. Everything from websites to email servers would be crippled without DNS in place. You can think of it as the phonebook for the internet. It converts IP addresses into a domain that’s easier to remember like groovypost.com. For more check out our article: What is DNS and Why it Matters. Add Google Public DNS to Your Router From a computer on your network, launch a browser and type in the IP of your router, and hit Enter....

The good news is that Android gives you the tools to block a number on Android. The process is straightforward, regardless of the version or device you’re using. Most modern Android phones allow you to block numbers at the device level, which gives you complete control over which numbers can get through. We’ll show you how to block a number on Android below. How to Block a Number on Android Note: These instructions are similar on all Android devices, and we’re using a OnePlus and Samsung Galaxy phone to demonstrate this below....

There is one workaround that sort of lets you block iPhone calls for free. This won’t actually block the calls to your iPhone, but it will reduce the annoyance by up to 50 percent, depending on how often you have your phone on vibrate. Here’s how it works: Step One Create a new contact in your iPhone that’s dedicated to nuisance callers—telemarketers, ex-girlfriends, addled drug addicts, etc. You can assign multiple numbers to the same contact....

I moved my Echo into another room far away from a TV because it would be falsely triggered when someone said ‘Alexa’. In fact, sometimes it would wake and start telling me news or start playing a random song. Luckily something wasn’t purchased, too. Change Your Echo Device’s Wake Word It’s also worth mentioning that a Reddit user posted that their Echo Dot got a fourth option, “Computer” after a recent firmware update....

Log in to your Outlook.com account, click on Settings (wheel icon), type language in the search box and click Language and region. Click the down arrow and select your language. In my example, I chose Deutsch (German) and clicked Save. You will need to refresh your browser for the changes to take effect. As you can see in my example, everything has been flipped into my chosen language. It’s quite simple now with the new search feature in settings....

Change Firefox App Tab Icons Here I’m showing you how to change the App Tab for a site that doesn’t have an icon, but the same steps apply if you just want to change the icon. First, click the App Tab you want to change and bookmark the page. Right click on the page then click Bookmark this page. Next install the Bookmark Favicon Changer extension — it requires a Firefox restart....

How-To Change the Color in Photos Using Photoshop CS5 {Screencast} How-To Change the Color in Photos Using Photoshop CS5 {Step-by-Step} Open Photoshop and press Ctrl+O to evoke the Open dialog. From there you can browse to your image and open it up. Most people would usually consider this the easy part, but in fact it’s all dependent on the image you’re using. Since I’ve got a car, I need a perfect, smooth selection around the edges....

The changes made will take effect immediately. As you can see from the screenshot below, I’m now displaying the temperature in Fahrenheit. The US just likes to be different….. Thnx for the feedback. Comment Name * Email * Δ Save my name and email and send me emails as new comments are made to this post.

Hit the Menu key and tap System Settings. If you don’t see this option, look for the Settings app in the app drawer. Select Language & input from the list. Under Keyboard & Input methods, you should see a list of installed keyboards on your device. The default one is Android keyboard. If you have any other keyboard apps installed, it will show up on the bottom of the list....