Don't discard that old smartphone so quick! It can be your new security system!

The way we treat old smartphones is akin to how we treat old jewelry. Once we’ve moved on to newer, shinier options, we tend to hang on to the old. They gather dust in drawers and boxes marked “save.” We will probably never use them again, yet we have a sense that they’re too valuable to junk. There are precious metals in both, right?

You could recoup some fraction of your old smartphone’s cost by trading it in. Or you could repurpose it — deploying its still-functional microphone and camera as a baby monitor, home speaker, or security camera.

Thanks to Lauren Thomas of Reviews.com.  Click here for a great article on how you can repurpose your old smartphone into a new security camera system. 

How to use Siri to remember where you parked on iOS

Siri has access to your location data and it uses the information to show you the weather and run shortcuts that need to use your location, among other things. Location data is generally used by map apps, weather apps, or any other variation of these that help you find some sort of location. Apps like Snapchat or Instagram may use it to tag photos and load related filters, and your camera app adds the location to a photo’s metadata. The point is, it’s used in all sorts of different ways, with or without Siri. As far as Siri is concerned though, you can use location data and have Siri remember where you parked.

Siri: Remember where I parked my car

Make sure Siri has access to your location data. Open the Settings app and go to Privacy>Location Services. Make sure location services are on, and then look for Siri & Dictation. Make sure it has access to your location data.

Once you’ve made sure Siri can access your location, you can ask it to save where you’re parked. After you’re parked, activate Siri and say ‘Siri, remember where I parked my car’.

Siri will show you a Map with a pin dropped on where you’re parked to show it’s saved the location. When you need to find where you’re parked, activate Siri and ask it to tell you where you parked by saying, ‘Siri, where did I park my car?’

Siri will bring up the location on the map. You can tap it and it will open Apple Maps which you can then use to navigate to the location where you parked your car.

Microsoft will begin replacing Microsoft Edge with its Chromium-based browser next week

Beginning Wednesday, the era of the “traditional” Microsoft Edge will come to an end—for consumers, anyway.

Microsoft said in November that the new Chromium-based Edge would begin replacing the “traditional” Edge, which uses Microsoft’s own EdgeHTML to render pages.  Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president in charge of Microsoft’s Modern Life & Devices Group, told PCWorld that the process would begin on January 15. Microsoft confirmed this in a document it released earlier this week, though with one caveat: If you’re a business user, you can choose to remain on the “old” Edge.

According to Microsoft, Windows 10 Home and Pro PCs that are running Windows 10 1803 (the April 2018 Update) will be automatically updated to the new Chromium-based Edge, colloquially known as “Chredge” or “Edgium.” If your PC is joined to an Active Directory or Azure Active Directory domain, or managed by an external admin—business users, essentially—then it will be excluded from the upgrade. Microsoft will also deploy what it’s calling the Blocker Toolkit to help prevent automatic delivery of the new Edge.

Consumers, however, won’t have a choice. And to many, they’ll simply see the old Edge replaced with the new Edge, complete with an updated logo. Naturally, this won’t make much of a difference if you already browse with Chrome or Firefox as your default browser. If you do use Edge, however, you’ll begin seeing the new Edge with its new UI. Microsoft’s made an effort to keep the new Edge’s memory consumption down.

Microsoft’s going right down to the wire in finalizing the new Edge, too. According to the latest beta build of the new Edge (Edge version 79.0.309.60), certain sync features haven’t yet been turned on, including open tabs and history. Insider versions of the new Edge also won’t sync with the old Edge, at least right now. (That may be fixed by release.) 

So what can you do if you still want to hold on to the old Microsoft Edge, at least for now? It’s unclear, but more information may arrive next week: “This process will start after January 15, 2020 and more information will be available on that date,” Microsoft says of the Edge transitional period. So for now, stay tuned.

Windows 7 dies in a week's time: How to move from Windows 7 to Windows 10

If you’re a Windows 7 user, your deadline is near: Windows 7 officially exits support on Jan. 14, 2020, so it’s very close to the time you need to upgrade to Windows 10.

“End of support” means that your Windows 7 or Office 2010 software will no longer receive updates, including security updates, according to Microsoft. 

If you’re a consumer, there’s really no option but to upgrade to Windows 10. If your PC is part of a Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise volume license, joined to a domain, your company may be willing to pay Microsoft a per-device fee to maintain support for 2020. But that’s an option only for business PCs, not everyday users.

What to do after Windows 7 support ends

At this point, you have several choices:

1. Ignore the deadline, including the popup warnings you’ve probably already received.
2. Buy a new copy of Windows 10 ($140 from Microsoft), and install it.
3. Hope that the free upgrade loophole still exists.
4. Buy a new Windows 10 PC and migrate your existing files over to the new machine.

Note that these options also apply to Windows 8.1, whose support ends in 2023.

Option one: Risk your entire PC

We wouldn’t recommend the first option: ignoring the deadline altogether. Essentially, at least where Microsoft is concerned, your PC will simply cease to exist. Third-party antivirus software, apps, utilities, games and other software will still work. But Microsoft won’t upgrade any of its browser software, and if a vulnerability is discovered for Windows 7, it won’t be patched. There will be no technical support for Windows 7. You’re on your own.

One exception? Oddly enough, it’s Office. If you subscribe to Office 365 and run Windows 7, you’ll still receive security updates for Office 365 for the next 3 years, until January 2023. But you won’t receive any new Office 365 features, which are one of the reasons for buying Office 365. Office 2010 and the newer standalone Office suites will be “supported,” too—but only if the problem is specific to Office, and not to the interaction between Office and Windows 7. In that case, you’re stuck.

Option two: Buy a new Windows 10 license

Second, you can upgrade your existing PC with a new Windows 10 license.

At one point, upgrading to Windows 10 was as simple as clicking a button and signing up for the free upgrade. Unfortunately, that window has closed—maybe. That means paying $200 for Windows 10 Pro, or $140 for Windows 10 Home  (which has increased from Microsoft’s original price of $120 when it first launched). That will buy you a USB key with the Windows 10 software installed, which you can then insert into your PC and perform the necessary upgrade.

Option 3: Upgrade to Windows 10 for free

There may be a third option. Microsoft gave Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users an entire year after the launch of Windows 10 (until July 31, 2016) to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, and then until the end of 2017 to use an assistive loophole to gain access. However, Microsoft apparently never turned off the Windows 10 upgrade servers, according to ZDNet reporter Ed Bott. So you may end up lucking out: You might be able to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 for free!

If you have a Windows 7 PC, simply visit the Windows 10 download page, and download the upgrade tool onto your PC. (You’ll have to accept the license terms.) Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium will upgrade to Windows 10 Home, while the other Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions will be replaced with Windows 10 Pro.

You can either perform an in-place upgrade to upgrade to Windows 10 directly on the PC, or else download the tool onto a separate USB key (with at least 8GB of free space) or onto a CD-R or rewritable DVD. The latter option will allow you to upgrade multiple PCs.

Note that you’ll still need a valid Windows 7 license for the tool to work. If, for some reason, Windows doesn’t detect the license on the machine, you may need to enter it manually. You may need to dig out the old Windows 7 license key—our license-key tutorial can help out here, especially the section on using the Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder. You may also have the license key tucked away on a sticker on the laptop or desktop. (The product key should be five sets of letters and numbers, formatted like this: xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx)

Be sure to back up everything you wouldn't want to lose: documents and photos, at a minimum. That means copying those files to a backup hard drive, DVD, or the cloud. This is a “better safe than sorry” scenario: By default, Windows will preserve the apps, settings, and files when it upgrades your system to Windows 10. (You can also back up your files in Windows 7, and restore them later in Windows 10.)

We can’t say how long the process will take. From downloading the tool and the necessary files, and performing the upgrade, and possibly downloading any additional patches, it’s a good idea to allot at least an hour to the process, perhaps more. The process will also be complicated by how fast your broadband connection is, and whether your PC uses a spinning hard drive or SSD.

Once the process completes, it’s time to check on the status of your files: Were your photos preserved? Your documents? It’s at this point that you may want to copy back the files you backed up, if they aren’t there. Double-check applications, including antivirus programs, to make sure the license keys are still intact. It’s also a good time to familiarize yourself with how to set up a new Windows 10 computer and how to personalize your PC, just to be sure you’re taking full advantage of Windows 10.

If you're upgrading on older hardware, Windows 10 may run more slowly than Windows 7, just due to the increased load on your processor and hard drive. Resetting your PC may help: Click the search box in the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, then type in reset or reset my PC. That will take you to the Recovery menu in the Settings, where you’ll have the option of reinstalling Windows yet again. That may help improve performance, but it will also take even more time to complete.

Option four: Buy a new PC

The fourth option is simply to buy a new PC, with all-updated hardware. Chances are you’ll be buying a much faster CPU, a better graphics processor, and probably a lightning-fast SSD storage drive as well. If you’ve been following our Black Friday and holiday PC deals, you’ve probably seen some fantastic deals on new PCs. The good news is that PC makers and retailers will likely let those linger well into the new year. We also have a frequently-updated list of the best laptops we've tested, as well as the best budget laptop deals on Amazon and Best Buy, to help with your purchase.

These Researchers Want to Save You From Ransomware (for Free)

If your PC is ever locked by ransomware, paying up won't necessarily release your files; in fact, we recommend that you never hand over cash to these scammers.

What to do? There's a minor chance you can save your files without surrendering your wallet or trashing your PC entirely. A group of security researchers routinely examines the latest ransomware strains for flaws in their computer code, and develops free tools that can (sometimes) reverse the infection.

Michael Gillespie is among those researchers. He's a programmer by day, but in his free time he works as a ransomware hunter for the New Zealand-based antivirus firm Emsisoft, a leading provider of ransomware decryptors. Desperate victims frequently reach out to him for help. "I can get anywhere from 50 to 200 people contacting me per day. It's crazy," he said in an interview.  Check out the full article here.

Having Trouble Seeing Your iPhone or iPad Screen? Use These Tools

This applies to my old eyes just as much as it does to yours!  Do you have trouble viewing the screen on your iPhone or seeing objects around you? If so, your mobile device can help. Apple's smartphone and tablet offer several features that can help people improve your vision, including text and color settings, as well as several accessibility features.

Both the iPhone and iPad allow users to change text size and alter color settings to make screens more legible. The all-new dark mode that comes with iOS 13 and iPadOS paints screens and apps with a darker tint to make them easier to read in low-light conditions. The zoom tool is a customizable option that lets you zoom in on areas of the screen to better see text, images, and other content. And magnifier lets you better see objects up close through your device's camera.  Check out PCMag for the full article