Netflix recently launched its services in an additional 130 countries. Amidst all the fanfare, what they did not mention was that not all countries would get the same catalog as Netflix USA. They did hint at different licensing restrictions for different shows. It turns out the differences are quite large. Most countries have less than 20% of the complete catalog.

For Netflix and other services that limit their services to specific countries, users ended up using third party services to use the full catalog. There are two main ways of doing this.

The first are called SmartDNS services. DNS is how website names are resolved into actual server addresses. Once you sign up for a Smart dns service, you change the DNS servers on your router. The next time you call up the Netflix website, it redirects it to a server owned by the dns provider. They then route traffic through their network and it looks like you are coming from their network. This allows you to select any geographic territory they support.

The second method is through a VPN. A VPN, knows as a virtual private network, allows you to connect to a server in the target country and then you are basically operating through a network tunnel from that country. This method is more secure as it does not involve any of your traffic passing through a server owned by the dns provider. In addition, traffic on VPNs are usually encrypted.

Both of these methods will cost you. Usually in monthly subscription fees. But be warned, these services are constantly blocked by service like Netflix and Spotify.

What gift do you give a techie who already has everything they need? a gift card. An iTunes gift card is one of the most popular gifts, especially for the holidays. It is popular because you can buy it in several denominations, but most of all it is an actual physical card which is essential when you want to be able to give a physical gift. There are so many things you can buy with it, here are a few apps:

 

Tweetbot

There are a lot of twitter clients available on iOS, but nothing compares to Tweetbot. Ask any techie or Apple fan and they will tell you the same thing. If you don’t have this already, and are still using the official Twitter client, this is a good purchase.

 

Riptide

This is a game that never gets old. You can get hours and hours of fun. Even better is that you can play it on the iPhone and the iPad. It is most definitely the best racing game on iOS. For even more fun it can be paired with a game controller.

 

Others

Asphalt 8 (racing game), Fantastical 2 (calendar app), Alto’s Adventure (puzzle game) and Monument Vallye (adventure game) are some other honourable mentions.

 

This is only the list of Apps. You could even by Movies, TV Shows and Music. If you are heavy music listener than there is nothing better than putting your gift card dollars towards an Apple Music subscription.

There’s a reason why experts recommend two backups instead of one. This is because there’s always a chance of that backup that you created not working at all.

However, there is a fix for this problem and in particular for image backups.

But first: what is an image backup?

Simply put, it is able to copy an entire partition or drive into one large file.

 While you can use it to backup documents and other files, you can literally back Windows and all your installed programs as well.

Even then, your data is usually more about important. Installing Windows is always a possibility as being able to retrieve your child’s pictures or that quarterly report you saved.

If you have backup either locally or in the cloud, then you can restore that. Or else, if you use OneDrive or Dropbox, then you obtain at least some of your files from there as well.

The next option is to mount your image backup as a drive. Most backup programs give you the option to do this.

All you have to do is double-click the backup file on your computer where your backup program has been installed.

If it isn’t completely corrupted, then it should appear in Windows as a virtual partition. You can then copy and paste files to another drive as a result.

This also works with Windows backup files as well. If you are using the WindowsImageBackup folder, you’ll find the files there as well. However, you have to access each folder in order to obtain VHDX file.

This is no different with Windows 7.

Now if these tips don’t work, the other option is to buy an external drive while attempting to recover the entire drive to it.

If this works, then try cloning it to the internal drive. Or try the restoration on another computer. But it will have to be an external drive.

Finally, if this doesn’t work then use HDDScan to run a diagnosis on the backup drive.

If you launch a web search from Cortana, it uses the Bing search engine and not Google.

So, what if you’d like to use Google for web search instead?

Of course, there’s a perfectly good reason for this – Cortana’s “brains” are powered by Bing, so a multi-engine search is not possible.

For some users, this should be enough especially if they need help with simple tasks such as checking the weather, solving math problems or even tracking flights. But when it comes to search engine results, most people still prefer Google to Bing, quite honestly.

 Yet there are ways by which you can redirect your search but it will only work with Firefox or Bing.

Before we look at how this possible, it must be said that this will not be possible with Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer or Opera.

(Also, if you don’t care about Google, then these solutions should work with DuckDuckGo and Yahoo too.)

Now, using Firefox is the easiest way access Google Search. There’s no need for add-ons either. Simply download the latest version of Firefox and set it as your default search engine. Cortana will follow suit if you’ve not used it before.

In fact, by default, Cortana will open Yahoo. Change that by clicking on the magnifying glass icon in the search bar.

Alternatively, for Chrome, you can use an add-on such as Chrometana. Once you’ve downloaded this, go to Extensions and look Chrometana. Click Options. Pick either Google, DuckDuckGo or Yahoo and close the tab.

You’re all set to use Google as your default search engine.

With the introduction of trackpad gestures in Windows 8, Microsoft changed its operating system for the better.

These trackpad gestures eliminate the need for the two buttons that are present at the top of your device’s touch area. With Windows 10, they have taken this even further by improving on the foundation they set in Windows 8.

 Apart from adding existing features, they have also added new touch controls while removing a few that served no purpose whatsoever. One example of the latter would be swiping in from the right for the Charms bar since there isn’t one in Windows 10.

The only thing that you must keep in mind is that to use these gestures, one will have to use a precision touchpad. This won’t work on older laptops.

If you want to know whether your device supports gestures, then go to the Settings app as well as Devices> Mouse & Touchpad.

If it displays “Your PC has a precision touchpad”, you can swipe and tap using these features too.

Here are 5 ‘precision touchpad’ features:

1: Select an item

Tap once on the touchpad.

2: Scroll

Put two fingers on the touchpad and swipe horizontally or vertically.

3: Open Task View

Put three fingers on the touchpad and swipe up. In other words, swipe in the direction away from you.

4: Right-click

Either tap the touchpad with two fingers or press gently in the bottom right-hand corner.

5: Open Cortana

Tap the touchpad with three fingers.

As writers we all have problem words. Words that we use all the time and can’t rid of because it is a habit.

This is where a couple of tools can come in handy where the first is easy to use while the other requires advanced understanding.

Here are two of these writing tools that can come in handy:

 1: Web App Solution

Probably the easiest to get an idea of how many times you are using a particular word is by using an online app.

All you have to do is cut and paste the text and hit the count button. It will throw up a report and that should tell you all you need to know. One of these tools is Text Fixer. Just paste the text under the area ‘Word Analysis Tool’ and select the ‘Count Words’ button. Also, just uncheck the option ‘Exclude common areas from word frequency count’.

 2: Microsoft Add-In

Adding a Microsoft add-in requires you to go through Windows folders. For this, you need to look at your hidden folder by selecting Windows + E. Click the View tab and make sure you check the Hidden Items box. Now you have to look for add-ons by the developer, Gregory Maxey. A ZIP file containing a .dot and .dotm file will be downloaded. Extract the latter file.

Now copy and paste this file to the following path: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP

After this, open a Word document that you’d like to check. Now look for a new tab at the top of Word menu titled Add-Ins. When you click that tab, you’ll find a menu item for word usage. You can obtain a word frequency report that will appear as a new document.

There are a number of ways your Android device tracks your activity. Whether or not you find that to be creepy depends on how paranoid you really are.

Of course, Google does this so as to generate search results that might be most suited to your needs. Even though the company says that only you can access your browsing history, it’s still a good idea to think about knowing how Android tracks your activity.

Having said, here are 3 ways by which you Android tracks your activity:

#1: Web History

Google keeps track of your searches whenever you use Chrome from any device so as to make your search results far more relevant. In order delete your web history, open the Applications drawer and the Google Settings. Now tap Account History, Web & App Activity and Manage History buttons. You can either turn on the Private Browsing feature in Chrome or use the Search box and Remove Items button accordingly to delete your search history. You also have an option to put your entire web history on pause so that Google doesn’t save your searches. This is done by unselecting the On setting on top of the Web & App Activity screen.

#2: Location

If you give Google the green signal, Android will keep track of the location of your tablet or other devices and which is done by pinging its servers from time to time. This can happen even if you aren’t actively using these devices.

To remove it, go to Google Location History and uncheck all devices whose location you do not want to share. Tap Delete Location History to wipe your location history completely.

#3: YouTube Browsing

Your YouTube searches are usually saved so as to offer recommendations and better search results in the future. Now you can either remove an individual search or all of it. For this, go to Account Activity screen and YouTube Search History as well as Manage History. As mentioned earlier, to remove individual search from the list, tap the three-dot menu button and then, Remove from Search History. As for deleting the entire list, tap the Clear all Search history button.