I love how Facebook researchers find the darnedest things. The latest out of their labs (actually an internal study from 2018) is that they found that using Facebook increased loneliness more than other activities its researchers surveyed, including video games and watching TV.
As more people “discover” Windows 11, they find things like dark mode doesn’t have what one would expect: scheduling when it turns on or shortcuts to turn it on or off. Try Auto Dark Mode (search github.com for “Windows Auto Night Mode”). You can also use flux (justgetflux.com).
Users of Microsoft 365 find their default save location is OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage service designed to let you access your files from multiple devices. If you want to change that, you can do it each time, or you can enable saving to your computer as the default. In any Office product, click File, Options, Save, and look for “Save documents”. Enable Save to Computer by default and then click the Browse button to find and pick the folder on your computer where you would like to save files. When done, click OK and restart that Office application for changes to take effect.
If it’s a chore to remember to empty the recycle bin in Windows, get rid of it entirely. In other words, deleted items bypass the recycle bin. To set this up, right click on the recycle bin icon and select Properties; after you have highlighted the C: drive in the list of recycle bin locations, click the circle dot by the “Don’t move files …” choice. Repeat this for any other drives you wish and then click the OK button. To hide the recycle bin from the desktop, right click on a blank section of the desktop to get to Personalize, then Themes in the left pane, then Desktop icon settings. In this window, uncheck the box by Recycle Bin and click OK to save and close this window.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has a list of freely available tools small businesses and individuals might wish to take advantage of at cisa.gov/free-cybersecurity-services-and-tools.
What should you do after you send something critical or insulting to the wrong person? Something like, “This is so awkward, but that was intended for someone else. I’m sorry for involving you and I would really appreciate if we could keep this private” could be good. Go for honesty and checking texts before sending.
Remember to keep down the number of browser tabs you have open, as it will save your battery and improve overall computer speed, both for Windows and macOS.