12 Things to Do to Your Friends’ and Family’s Tech to Get Them to Stop Bothering You

It ’s the most marvellous time of the twelvemonth : The time when you get to undertake a year ’s worth of tech worry in just one visit to the domicile of a congener . If you ’re the designated IT expert in your branch of the category , here ’s how to go on on the most useful advice in the quick meter possible , so you’re able to get back to enjoying yourself .

1) Turn off TV motion smoothing

question smoothing is designed to lose weight blur , but unless you ’re watch sports or play video game , it can lead to aneerie “ soap opera event ” that ’s overly realistic . Do your phratry a favour and disable movement smoothing on their TVs — you’ll have to flow a World Wide Web hunt for the modeling of TV to find the instructions , but the option should n’t be too difficult to recover ( remember that different manufacturer have unlike names for motion smoothing ) .

2) Don’t neglect the updates

Make certain your family members are n’t neglecting twist group O updates , as these patches include of the essence security measure and bug fixes . It ’s really very hard not to update gadget these day , but it ’s deserving checking that your have it off ones are on the latest oxygen versions wherever potential ( look under General and Software Update in setting on an iPhone , for example , and under System , advance and System update in options on Android gadget ) .

3) Archive photos and videos

If you only blab out to your family about back up one type of data , verify it ’s exposure and videos , which can be siphoned off to the swarm for safekeeping . Google Photos is a good bad-tempered - platform solution , and it ’s free if you do n’t mind a bit of resizing . If you’re able to carry your congeneric to drop a few dollars a calendar month then you ’ve acquire many more options , including iCloud Photo Library , Dropbox , OneDrive , and Google photograph again ( at full res ) .

4) Refresh the router

It ’ll only take you a few minutes , but reset your family ’s router , insure for any microcode upgrade , and mayhap putting it in a more central emplacement ( if possible ) should stave off sight of net - related problem over the next 12 months . It ’s probably also deserving changing the wifi password — it’ll mean value reconnecting every gimmick , but it will kick off any neighbour or one-time devices that you do n’t want taking up internet bandwidth .

5) Update password management

Many of us will have congeneric who just use the same password for all of their online accounting , which is a very unsafe approach shot as far as security survive — even spell word down on a notepad and putting in a drawer is safe , as long as they ’re different . good of all , introduce your family to thepassword reposition featuresin today ’s modern browsers , or think about treating them to adedicated password manageras a present .

6) Set up two-factor authentication

Data falling out are all too vulgar these days , buttwo - factor authentication(2FA ) can keep you protected even if your username and countersign are disclose . Make trusted your make out ones have 2FA on all their major accounts — the only extra thing they involve is an authenticator app on their phone to generate codes . 2FA is supported by just about every pregnant service out there now , include Facebook , Apple , Google and Microsoft .

7) Trim down browser bloat

It ’s a safe idea to spend a few minutes getting rid of all of the unnecessary add - ons and extensions that have built up in the web web browser used by your congener : Chances are they ’ve accumulated a bunch of pointless and even dangerous one over the last twelvemonth , some of which they may not even know about . By the time you ’ve end the process , the browser app should be ply more rapidly , and the software should be much less bloated .

8) Limit browser tracking

speak of web browser , order limits on the number of trackers that site can run will keep more of your family ’s personal information secret . Safari and Firefox handle this well right out of the box seat , while you could limit third - party cookies in Chrome via Advanced , website background , and cooky and site data . you could also install a tracker - blocking extension such as Ghostery or Privacy Badger , which will put restrictions on how much trailing goes on .

9) Clear out the clutter

If a laptop starts running out of repositing space , it can quickly slow down to a crawl and begin getting plagued by all form of bugs and problem , even if it ’s relatively new and quick . On Windows , search for and execute the Disk Cleanup app ; on macOS , launch the Apple computer menu then choose About This Mac , Storage , and Manage . Both these public utility will guide you through the process of wipe temporary data and junk Indian file off the computer ’s drive .

10) Get rid of unused apps

Erasing old , unnecessary temporary files will only get you so far — see if you’re able to get your fellowship member to also go through the apps they ’ve got installed on their computers and even their earphone and ditch the 1 they do n’t really require . They might have come preinstalled on the machine , they might have been installed years ago and been forgotten about , they might interrelate to subscription that are no longer active , and so on and so on .

11) Get smart speakers to forget

Your relatives might well have a smart speaker or two around the home and peradventure do n’t agnise that everything that gets said to these devices is remember forever and a day . Bookmark the relevant page forAmazon AlexaandGoogle Nestspeakers that enable these voice search and command to be wiped — in the case of Google , you may have activity wipe automatically once it get older than three months , which is a setting Charles Frederick Worth enable .

You might not be around for the ease of the year , but you could still check in on house fellow member through the magic of screen door - sharing software — detached apps likeChrome Remote DesktopandTeamViewerenable you to check in from anywhere , even if you ’re not in the same physical space , so set one of them up before you will . or else , do n’t bother : Maybe you ’d rather be impart in peace until the next family line gathering comes around .

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