How Do I Change the System Maintenance Schedule in Windows 10?
By default, Windows 10 wakes up your computer automatically at 2 AM to do its daily system maintenance. This maintenance includes tasks like software updates, system diagnostics, and security scanning. While daily maintenance is neccessary to keep your computer running smoothly, your computer waking up at night can be annoying, especially if it makes a lot of noise and you sleep near it. Luckily, you can configure the system to run the maintenance tasks at a different time. For example, you can tell it to wake up the computer one or two hours before you work. By doing so, your system will always run smoothly, and you will be able to sleep well at night. Continue reading to find out how.
How Do I Turn Off Video Auto-play on Facebook
On Facebook, videos that are directly uploaded to the site now play automatically. Because of a feature introduced earlier to mobile devices, users looked for ways to stop videos from playing automatically on YouTube. With the implementation of auto-play on computer web browsers, people will be more inclined to upload videos to Facebook instead of posting links to videos. Although the videos that automatically play are on mute, they can be annoying at times, especially when you consider the unnecessary data and extra RAM they require from your computer.
Luckily, there is a way to prevent videos from automatically playing. This article will guide you through the steps in disabling the auto-play feature on Facebook.
How to Apply Filters to Photos in Windows 10
You can spend hours fiddling with color and lighting settings, or you can use the built-in Enhance and Filter tools in Windows 10 to tweak your photos with a few mouse clicks. You have less control over the final image when you let Photos do the fine-tuning for you, but it sure is a quick and easy fix. I have found that the enhance tool does a good job of producing an image with deeper colors, and I like the option for quickly making a picture black and white. Read on to discover how to use these features.
How to Adjust Picture Brightness and Contrast in Windows 10
Sometimes photos turn out either too bright or too dark due to the camera’s exposure settings. With digital photography, these photo errors can be corrected after the fact using editing software like the Windows 10 built-in Photos app. There are two main settings to tweak when dealing with overexposed and underexposed pictures: brightness and contrast. Editing the brightness will result in all the pixels in your photo becoming lighter or darker. Increasing the contrast will simultaneously make the whites whiter and the blacks blacker, while decreasing the contrast will move them towards equilibrium. The goal is usually to balance the brightness and contrast to make a natural looking image. Using the steps in this tutorial, you can fine-tune the brightness and contrast settings on your Photos app to create impressive pictures.
How to Fix Red Eye in Windows 10 Photos
Red eye is a common phenomenon in low light photography. When the flash is too close to the lens on your camera (which is often the case with phone and compact cameras), the camera will capture light reflecting off your retinas in a way that makes them look spooky red. Fortunately, the Windows 10 built-in Photos app comes with a red eye correction tool that is easy to use. Read on to find out how.
If you are interested in the science behind red eye, check out this article by allaboutvision.com.
How Do I Prevent Windows 10 from Auto-Updating My Apps?
By default, all apps downloaded from the Windows Store will be updated automatically if updates are available. This feature may seem useful at first because users do not have to do anything to keep their apps up-to-date. However, it can potentially download unwanted updates without the user’s consent. Similar to updates for mobile apps, updates for PC apps may contain breaking changes, such as a feature removal, that not all users want. If the automatic update feature is on, users will lose the current version of their apps, and the features that they love could disappear. Additionally, newer versions of apps may contain bugs that cause them to stop functioning completely. These problems can be stopped by disabling the automatic update feature in the Store app. Continue reading to find out how to do it.
How to Add Blur & Vignette Effects with Windows 10 Photos
The Windows 10 Photos app comes with intuitive photo editing tools that make it easy to give your pictures an artistic flair. Two of my favorites are the Vignette and Selective focus effects. Vignette creates a black or white tinted edging to your photo that creates the effect of your image fading into the background without a definite border. The Selective focus effect allows you choose one part of your photo to stay in focus while blurring the rest. The steps in this tutorial explain how to use both options to create eye-catching photos.
How Do I Change the App Installation Location in Windows 10?
By default, all apps that are downloaded from the Windows Store will be installed to the C drive. This has been the case since Windows 8. However, in Windows 10, you are able to change the default location where apps will be installed and their data saved. Changing the installation location can be helpful when your system drive is running out of space, which happens often because of massive Windows updates and because of all the temporary data that is created by your collection of apps. Continue reading to find out how.
How to Open Files Using Cortana
Windows has had the ability to search for your files from the Start menu for quite some time now. This is handy, especially if you do not remember where you saved a file. Windows 10 has incorporated the search functionality into Cortana, meaning that you now have the ability to perform file searches using voice commands with more natural language patterns. If I do not remember what I named a presentation that I was working on last week, I can search using “Show me presentations from last week,” and it should show up on the results list. Keep reading to find out more about using Cortana to find your files.
Unfortunately, I have found this feature to be hit or miss. Sometimes Cortana works great, but often I have to try several times before it starts to function correctly. I have high hopes that this will remedy itself as Mircrosoft rolls out updates.
Windows 10: Use ALT + TAB to Switch Between Apps on All Desktops
