How to Add Non-Steam Games to Steam and Apply Custom Icons

Steam’s game management client is very streamlined if you’re only using Steam-purchased games, but it needs a little tweaking if you’re adding non-Steam games to the launcher. Read on as we show you how to add any game, application, or emulator to Steam with custom icons and artwork.

The 10 Best Gadgets of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2014

This year’s CES unveiled a ton of new gadgets, but most of them aren’t that interesting. Here are the ones that we liked the best — just the most interesting gadgets and gear that we looked at.
The thing about conferences like CES is that there is a ton of stuff to wade through — mountains of bluetooth speakers, phone cases, and all sorts of random things that nobody would ever want. There are also a lot of great products, but we’ve managed to narrow down the list to just ten of the most interesting things that we saw this time.

How to Download Windows 8.x and Create a Bootable DVD / USB (Legally)

Over the years, readers have written in asking how to download Windows and make a bootable install disk, and we’ve always had to tell them that there isn’t a great way to do that. Microsoft has finally fixed this problem in Windows 8.x, and here is how to do it.

Hacker Hat Colors Explained: Black Hats, White Hats, and Gray Hats

Hackers aren’t inherently bad — the word “hacker” doesn’t mean “criminal” or “bad guy.”  Geeks and tech writers often refer to “black hat,” “white hat,” and “gray hat” hackers. These terms define different groups of hackers based on their behavior.
The definition of the word “hacker” is controversial, and could mean either someone who compromises computer security or a skilled developer in the free software or open-source movements.

Google Play Editions Explained: Why They’re Useful Even if You Don’t Buy One

Google is now selling “Google Play Edition” devices alongside its Nexus devices on the Google Play Store website. These devices are versions of popular Android phones and tablets running different software. They seem primarily intended for Android enthusiasts and developers.
Unlike Nexus devices, these are currently only sold in the US. Outside the US, you’ll have to have a US-based friend order and ship one to you or buy from a reseller.

6 Tips for Mastering Microsoft’s Surface Pro

If you’ve got your hands on Microsoft’s Surface Pro, there are a variety of things you should know. These tricks span everything from hidden keyboard shortcuts and freeing up disk space to using the pen and connecting standard headsets.
The information in this article should apply to both the original Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2. We tested this out with a Surface Pro 2, but the devices are fairly similar aside from the internals.

Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full

Is Windows, Linux, Android, or another operating system using a lot of RAM? Don’t panic! Modern operating systems use RAM as a file cache to speed things up. Assuming your computer is performing well, there’s nothing to worry about.
While it may seem counterintuitive to those of us who remember our computers always being starved for RAM, high RAM usage means your RAM is being put to good use. Empty RAM is wasted RAM.

3 Simple Ways to Improve Low Resolution Images (and Typography)

It’s not a miracle, but these helpful tips can improve the quality of an image when enlarging from a low-resolution sample. It’s surprisingly simple and quite easy. Fire up Photoshop and check it out for yourself!
At How-To Geek, we’ve written extensively about how it’s impossible to “enhance” images and reclaim detail that is lost or isn’t there to begin with. Are we changing our tune? Nope, there’s nothing magical about these tips, except for the improved results you’ll get when you improve your own low resolution images. Keep reading and give it a shot!

How to Test Your Antivirus, Firewall, Browser, and Software Security

So you have an antivirus guarding your system, your firewall is up, your browser plug-ins are all up-to-date, and you’re not missing any security patches. But how can be sure your defenses are actually working as well as you think they are?
These tools can also be particularly useful if you’re trying to quickly determine how secure someone else’s PC is. They can show you just how much vulnerable software the PC has installed.

Why Solid-State Drives Slow Down As You Fill Them Up

The benchmarks are clear: Solid-state drives slow down as you fill them up. Fill your solid-state drive to near-capacity and its write performance will decrease dramatically. The reason why lies in the way SSDs and NAND Flash storage work.
Filling the drive to capacity is one of the things you should never do with a solid-state drive. A nearly full solid-state drive will have much slower write operations, slowing down your computer.

Windows 8.1 Will Start Encrypting Hard Drives By Default: Everything You Need to Know

Windows 8.1 will automatically encrypt the storage on modern Windows PCs. This will help protect your files in case someone steals your laptop and tries to get at them, but it has important ramifications for data recovery.
Previously, “BitLocker” was available on Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows, while “Device Encryption” was available on Windows RT and Windows Phone. Device encryption is included with all editions of Windows 8.1 — and it’s on by default.

How to Reset Your Windows Password Without an Install CD

If you’ve forgotten your Windows password and you don’t have an install CD laying around, there’s no need to worry. Not only are there half a dozen complicated ways to reset the password, you can do it easily with the Offline Windows Password editor.
Of course, if you do have a Windows CD, you can reset your password the easy way with a simple trick.

6 Start Menu Replacements for Windows 8

Want a Start menu on your Windows 8 desktop? While Microsoft no longer includes the Start button, opting instead for a click in a hidden corner and a new Start screen, there are quite a few Start menu replacements you can choose from.
You can try living without the Start button and customizing your Start screen – it’s very possible to get by without the Start button and some people seem to prefer the new interface – but you have a choice.
Many of these tools also allow you to boot directly to the desktop and hide the charms and app switcher that appear when you move your cursor to the corners of the screen, giving you a more traditional desktop experience.

14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers

Google can do more than display lists of websites – Google will give you quick answers to many special searches. While Google isn’t quite as advanced as Wolfram Alpha, it has quite a few tricks up its sleeve.
We’ve also covered searching Google like a pro by learning the Google search operators – if you want to master Google, be sure to learn those.

Should You Shut Down, Sleep, or Hibernate Your Laptop?

Computers can sleep, hibernate, or shut down. Sleep allows you to quickly resume using your laptop at the cost of some electricity. Hibernate is like shutting down your computer, but you can still resume working where you left off.
There’s no right answer in all situations. Some people leave their computers running 24/7, while others shut down computers the moment they step away. Each of these options has its advantages and disadvantages.

Should I Leave My Laptop Plugged In All The Time?

Should you leave your laptop plugged in and charging when you’re not on-the-go? What’s best for the battery? What’s best for your user experience? Read on as we investigate.
Image available as wallpaper-size download here.
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-drive grouping of Q&A web sites.

How to Optimize and Tune-Up Your PC Without Paying an Electronics Store

Stores like Best Buy will charge you $49.99 to “optimize” and “tune up” your PC — either in-store or online. These services are generally a complete waste of money — you can easily do this all yourself for free.
Electronics stores like these services because they’re very high-margin and almost pure profit. But don’t fall for it — we’ll show you how to do everything yourself without spending a dime.

QR Codes Explained: Why You See Those Square Barcodes Everywhere

QR codes are plastered on advertisements, billboards, business windows, and products. They appear to be very popular among marketers, although it’s rare to see anyone actually scanning one.
These barcodes can be captured with a smartphone camera — for example, a typical QR code may contain an URL. Scan the QR code with a mobile phone and you’ll be taken to the website the QR code specifies.

Put a Windows PC into Kiosk Mode With Assigned Access

Windows 8.1′s Assigned Access feature allows you to easily lock a Windows PC to a single application, such as a web browser. This feature makes it easy for anyone to configure Windows 8.1 devices as point-of-sale or other kiosk systems.
In the past, setting up a Windows PC in kiosk mode involved much more work, requiring the use of third-party software, group policy, or Linux distributions designed around kiosk mode.
Assigned Access is available on Windows 8.1 RT, Windows 8.1 Professional, and Windows 8.1 Enterprise. The standard edition of Windows 8.1 doesn’t support Assigned Access.

10 Things You Didn’t Know Your Web Browser Could Do Yet

Web browsers have been growing up over the past few years. Now that Internet Explorer 6’s hold on the web has been broken, browsers have been implementing a variety of cool new features that websites are taking advantage of today.
This article focuses on new web technologies that you can use on actual web pages today. Sure, some of you have no doubt heard of many of these, but the majority of people haven’t heard of all of them.

8 Ways Hardware Manufacturers Are Deceiving You

Sure, everyone involved can come up with a variety of excuses — they aren’t technically misleading customers, it’s all in the fine print, and these are the standard ways the industry operates — but hardware has been advertised in many misleading ways.
We’re not the only ones calling these marketing gimmicks misleading. Some of these tricks have even been the subject of class-action lawsuits for misleading consumers. Today we will look at 8 ways hardware manufacturers attempt to pull the metaphorical wool over the consumer’s eyes.

15 System Tools You Don’t Have To Install on Windows Anymore

Windows includes its own versions of many widely used system utilities. A variety of new utilities were added to Windows 8, but many of these utilities are available on Windows 7, too.
If the first thing you do after setting up a new Windows installation is install all your preferred utilities, this can speed things up. Better yet, these utilities are available on every Windows computer you’ll come across.

3 Ways to Make Your Old Netbook Suck Less

Netbooks are terrible, as most people now agree. They seemed like a good idea at the time, offering a cheap laptop experience in a small package. But they were ultimately too slow, too small, and too poorly built.
Many netbooks are now lying around, unused. If you’re one of the people who purchased a netbook and can’t bring yourself to use it, these tips may help you get some more value out of your investment.

How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor

Have you ever noticed that a pixel – a little dot on your computer’s LCD monitor – is staying a single color all of the time? You have a stuck pixel. Luckily, stuck pixels aren’t always permanent.
Stuck and dead pixels are hardware problems. They’re often caused by manufacturing flaws – pixels aren’t supposed to get stuck or die over time.

Debunking Battery Life Myths for Mobile Phones, Tablets, and Laptops

Batteries need to be cared for properly — they’re a critical part of our mobile devices and battery technology hasn’t advanced as fast as other technologies. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of incorrect information about batteries out there.
Some of the big myths come from old battery technologies and are actively harmful when applied to new battery technologies. For example, nickel-based batteries needed to be fully discharged, while modern lithium batteries shouldn’t be fully discharged.

How to See Which Browser Extensions Are Slowing Down Your Browser

Browser extensions are useful, but they can increase your browser’s memory consumption, make it take longer to open, and slow it down in general. But how do you measure the impact a browser extension has on your system?
Each browser offers its own ways to pin down an extension’s memory consumption, CPU usage, or startup delay. The exact information you’ll get depends on your browser.

Do You Need the Professional Edition of Windows 8?

If you’re looking to purchase Windows 8, there are two main editions you need to concern yourself with: Windows 8 (similar to the Home edition in previous versions of Windows) and Windows 8 Pro.
Windows 8 has fewer editions than previous versions of Windows. We’ll be ignoring the other two here: Windows 8 Enterprise is targeted at larger organizations, while Windows RT is for ARM-based devices and is another beast entirely.

Forget Flashing Custom ROMs: Use the Xposed Framework to Tweak Your Android

Many low-level tweaks can normally only be performed on Android by flashing custom ROMs. The Xposed Framework allows you to modify your ROM without installing a new custom ROM. All it requires is root access.
Sure, you may want to flash a custom ROM like CyanogenMod  to get the latest version of Android or use a wide variety of tweaks, but the Xposed Framework makes it possible to perform small tweaks without replacing your Android operating system.

5 Reasons to Install a Custom Android ROM (and Why You Might Not Want To)

Android is open source, so developers can take its code, add features, and build their own operating system images for Android phones and tablets. Many Android geeks install such custom ROMs — but why?
“ROM” stands for “read-only memory.” A custom ROM replaces your device’s Android operating system — normally stored in read-only memory — with a new version of the Android operating system. Custom ROMs are different from acquiring root access.

How to Use the Advanced Startup Options to Fix Your Windows 8 Computer

Windows 8’s advanced startup tools function differently than the tools on previous versions of Windows. If your Windows 8 system can’t boot properly, the tools will appear automatically so you can fix the problem.
We’ve covered several ways to access the advanced startup options if your PC is working properly, including through the PC settings application. You can also create a recovery drive to ensure you’ll always be able to access these options.

Get Suggestions for Improving Your Android Phone’s Battery Life With Carat

You don’t need a task killer because Android can normally manage processes better on its own. However, this all falls apart if there’s a buggy app hogging your resources and running when it shouldn’t be. But how do you identify these misbehaving apps?
Carat, an app developed by a team of researches at AMP Lab at UC Berkeley, is an Android app that collects samples from many devices and suggests actions you can take to improve your phone’s battery life. Carat uses machine learning to analyze the data it collects and identify battery hogs.

Beginner Geek: How to Reinstall Windows on Your Computer

Reinstalling Windows is one of the easiest ways to fix software problems on your computer, whether it’s running slow or infected by viruses. You should also reinstall Windows before you get rid of an old PC.
Depending on your version of Windows and how you installed it – or whether it came with your computer – there are a number of different ways to reinstall Windows.

What the DMCA Is and How it Affects the Internet

The Digital Millennium Contract is a US law passed in 1998 in an attempt to modernize copyright law to deal with the Internet. The DMCA has a number of provisions, but we’ll be focusing on the ones that have most affected the web we have today.
In particular, we’ll be focusing on the “notice and takedown” provisions that provide “safe harbor” for many service providers, as well as the anti-circumvention provisions that criminalize many common actions.

Why Does Rebooting a Computer Fix So Many Problems?

Ask a geek how to fix a problem you’ve having with your Windows computer and they’ll likely ask “Have you tried rebooting it?” This seems like a flippant response, but rebooting a computer can actually solve many problems.
So what’s going on here? Why does resetting a device or restarting a program fix so many problems? And why don’t geeks try to identify and fix problems rather than use the blunt hammer of “reset it”?

How to Disable the Splash Screens in Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

Every time you open a Microsoft Office application, you have to wait for the splash screen to disappear. If you want this to go away, here’s how you can disable the startup screen.
Note: Since we are creating a shortcut this will only disable the splash screens when creating a new document, but it will not be disabled when you open a document by double-clicking on it.

Should You Use an SSD Optimization Utility?

Traditional mechanical disk drives need to be defragmented for optimum performance, although Windows now does a good job of doing this automatically. Some software companies claim that their tools can “optimize” SSDs, just as disk defragmenters could speed up mechanical drives.
The reality is that modern operating systems and solid-state drive controllers do a good job of keeping themselves optimized if you use a solid-state drive properly. You don’t need to run an SSD optimization program like you’d run a disk defragmenter.

The Difference Between WEP, WPA, and WPA2 Wireless Encryption (and Why It Matters)

Even if you know you need to secure your Wi-Fi network (and have already done so), you probably find all the encryption acronyms a little bit puzzling. Read on as we highlight the differences between encryption standards like WEP, WPA, and WPA2–and why it matters which acronym you slap on your home Wi-Fi network.

How to Use the SteamOS Desktop

Valve’s SteamOS is a living-room operating system you can install yourself, but it will start shipping on Steam Machines later this year. While SteamOS is intended as a living-room operating system, it actually has a full Linux desktop.
The desktop underneath the slick Steam interface is a standard GNOME desktop built on top of Debian Linux. If you’ve used Linux before, it should look very familiar.

How to Reset Your Web Browser To Its Default Settings

Want to reset your web browser to its default settings? You can’t necessarily just uninstall it — your personal files will stay on your computer. And if your browser is Internet Explorer, it can’t be uninstalled at all.
Resetting your browser to its default state can often fix problems. For example, a program you install may change your search engine, install toolbars, and do other unwelcome things. Or you may have accidentally changed advanced settings on your own.

What is Bitcoin and How Does it Work?

Geeks have had their own “money” for some time, but typically it is within the context of online gaming. While this digital currency does possess intrinsic value, the market for it is usually limited to other gamers. However, 2009 gave rise to another form of digital currency, bitcoin, which has demonstrated some global demand as a medium for exchange.
Image credit: Zack Copley
Editor’s Note: we want to make it very clear right up front that we are not recommending that you invest in Bitcoins. It’s very likely that you will lose money.

10 Android Tweaks That Still Require Root

Many features that once required root have been added to Android over the years. However, many advanced tricks still require rooting your Android smartphone or tablet.
In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to root — rooting reduces your device’s security. That’s part of why CyanogenMod’s founder is looking at adding additional features to Cyanogenmod that would eliminate the need for root.

Find Out Which Apps are Keeping Your Android Awake With Wakelock Detector

The battery life of cell phones just doesn’t seem to be as long as it used to be. If your Android device is dying faster than you would like, Wakelock Detector can help you to home in on apps you have installed that might be killing your battery or preventing the screen from switching off.

How To Sideload Modern Apps on Windows 8

The average Windows 8 user can only download apps that Microsoft has approved from the Windows Store. Windows 8 offers two ways to sideload unapproved apps, which are intended for developers and businesses with internal apps.
These methods cannot be used by the average geek to install unapproved apps from the web. Windows 8’s new interface takes the Apple iOS approach of forbidding unapproved software, not the Android approach of allowing all users to enable sideloading.
Note: This only applies to Modern apps in the new Windows 8 interface, not on the desktop. Windows desktop applications can be installed normally. However, you can’t install any desktop applications on devices running Windows RT.

How Latency Can Make Even Fast Internet Connections Feel Slow

There is more to an Internet connection’s speed than just its bandwidth. This is especially true with satellite Internet connections, which can offer speeds of up to 15 Mbps – but will still feel slow.
Latency can be an issue with all Internet connections and networks. Wired network connections tend to have the lowest latency, while wireless connections generally have higher latency.

Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

If you’ve ever purchased a computer with a hard disk capacity of 500 GB and opened Windows Explorer only to find that its capacity looked more like 440 GB, you may be wondering where all those gigabytes went.
There are several reasons Windows could display the wrong amount of available space, from invisible shadow files, formatting overhead, and hidden recovery partitions to misleading (though technically accurate) storage capacities advertised by hard drive manufacturers.

6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7

Whatever you think of it, Windows 8 isn’t just a new interface slapped on top of Windows 7. Windows 8 has seen a lot of security improvements, including an integrated antivirus, an application reputation system, and protection from boot-time rootkits.
There are also quite a few low-level security improvements under the hood. Microsoft hasn’t spelled out all of them, but Windows 8 manages memory in a more secure way and includes features that make security vulnerabilities harder to exploit.

4 Ways to Run Android on Your PC and Make Your Own “Dual OS” System

Intel is now interested in pushing “Dual OS” PCs — devices with both Windows 8 and Android on them. But you don’t have to buy a new PC to do this — you can run Android apps and even the Android operating system on your current PC.
This allows you to use Android’s ecosystem of touch-based apps on touch-enabled Windows laptops and tablets, so it does make some sense. Of course, the process is clunker than just using Windows 8 apps.

How to Add Gadgets Back to Windows 8.1

Do you miss the gadgets from Windows 7 now that you’re using Windows 8.1? There’s no official way to re-install them, but there is a way to get them back using a third-party, free utility called 8Gadgetpack.

How to Use CCleaner Like a Pro: 9 Tips & Tricks

There’s more to CCleaner than clicking a single button. This popular application for wiping temporary files and clearing private data hides a variety of features, from fine-grained options for tweaking the cleaning process to full drive-wiping tools.
CCleaner is easy for beginners to use – just launch it and click the Run Cleaner button. But there’s a lot more you can do with it.

Cryptolocker ransomware has ‘infected about 250,000 PCs’

A virulent form of ransomware has now infected about quarter of a million Windows computers, according to a report by security researchers.
Cryptolocker scrambles users’ data and then demands a fee to unencrypt it alongside a countdown clock.
Dell Secureworks said that the US and UK had been worst affected.
It added that the cyber-criminals responsible were now targeting home internet users after initially focusing on professionals.