What is Windows 10’s fast startup? – CNET

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

Windows 10 is pretty new, but that doesn’t mean we’re not already looking for ways to speed it up. One built-in feature that can help us accomplish this is “fast startup,” which combines the hibernation and shutdown properties to give you a slightly speedier boot-up experience.

Fast startup is sort of like shutdown light — when fast startup is enabled, Windows will save some of your computer’s system files to a hibernation file upon shutdown (or rather, “shutdown”). Then, when you turn your computer back on, Windows will use these saved files to boot up quicker — basically, booting from hibernate instead of from scratch.

For obvious reasons, fast startup only works if you have hibernate enabled (learn how to enable/disable hibernate here). Also, fast startup only affects shutdowns, not restarts.

Here’s how to turn it on (or off):

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

1. Open the Settings menu by clicking the Start button and clicking Settings. In the Settings menu, go to System > Power & sleep and click Additional power settings.

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

2. The Power Options window will open. On the left side of the screen, click Choose what the power buttons do.

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

3. At the bottom of the window, you should see a section called Shutdown settings. In this section, you’ll see an option labeled Turn on fast startup (recommended). To turn on fast startup, check the box next to this option.

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

If you cannot check or uncheck the box next to this setting (if the option is grayed out), scroll up and click Change settings that are currently unavailable. You may be prompted to confirm your choice by a User Account Control (UAC) pop-up window — click Yes. You should now be able to adjust this setting.

4. Click Save changes to save your changes and exit out of the Power Options window. To see how your changes have affected your startup time, shut down your computer (completely — restart is not affected by fast startup) and boot it up.

Add missing places to your Google Maps Timeline on Android – CNET

The Timeline feature in Google Maps is relatively accurate when it comes to tracking where you’ve been. It’s especially useful if you misplaced a personal item sometime during your day, like a credit card, an ID or your wallet.

Google Maps already has a solution for editing locations that are incorrect within your Timeline (businesses that are close together usually cause issues), but now you can add places that are missing entirely. First, you’ll need to update to Maps 9.2 to gain access to this feature.

The update is rolling out to users on Android through Google Play, but it is also available on APKMirror. The cryptographic signature on the APK guarantees that the file is genuine and will replace the existing copy of Google Maps on your device. After updating:

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Screenshots by Nicole Cozma/CNET

Step 1: Open the menu within Google Maps and choose Timeline.

Step 2: Head to the day you want to edit, then you can either tap a place on your timeline where a location is missing, which will reveal a new Add a Place button. Or you can open the overflow menu and choose Add a place.

Step 3: Search for the place you want to add and then adjust the timeframe for when you were there.

Another small update, partially related to the Timeline, is the coupling of user-submitted photos with their respective reviews. This solves the issue of looking for the photo a reviewer mentioned, and makes it easier to see when photos were taken.

Unlimited data customer with T-Mobile? Change this setting – CNET

Sarah Tew/CNET

T-Mobile introduced its Binge On feature late last year. The program allows anyone with a data plan of 3GB or more to stream unlimited video that won’t count against your data cap. The list includes Netflix, HBO, Amazon Video, Sling TV and dozens of other streaming services. The major exception is YouTube.

Binge On automatically reduces streaming video quality (over cellular) to 480p. It will do this for all video streams, even services that aren’t include in the program such as YouTube. T-Mobile has advertised this so-called “optimized” stream as “DVD quality,” but in reality that means standard definition.

What caught me by surprise is that Binge On is enabled by default…even if you have unlimited 4G LTE data. Binge On is a great program for users with tiered data plans, but I pay for unlimited data for a reason. I want to take advantage of the beautiful Quad HD display on my smartphone and don’t want a downgraded video stream

Luckily, it’s not hard to disable Binge On, but I only recommend doing so if you have unlimited 4G LTE data. Disabling the feature will also make you ineligible to receive a free monthly movie rental through Vudu, but that’s a tradeoff I’m willing to make.

Here all of the different ways to disable Binge On:

From your smartphone

• Dial #264# to check your Binge On status
• Dial #263# to turn if off
• Dial #266# to turn it back on

On the T-Mobile website

• Log in to your T-Mobile account
• Scroll down on the home screen
• Click on the Turn On/Off link under the Binge On section
• Slide the Binge On switch to the off position

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Screenshot by Dan Graziano/CNET

On the T-Mobile website (for prepaid accounts)

• Log in to your T-Mobile account
• Toggle the Binge On switch to off under the “my current usage” tile

On the T-Mobile app

• Open the app.
• Select Account Info
• Select Plans & Services
• Select Add/Change Services
• Select Other
• Tap the button next to Disable Binge On
• Tap Continue

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Sarah Tew/CNET

On the T-Mobile app (for prepaid accounts)

• Open the app
• Select Account Info
• Select Plans & Services
• Select Add/Change Services
• Select Other
• Tap button next to Disable Binge On
• Tap Add Service and confirm
• Tap Continue
• Enter your PIN and then select Accept

Remove a stripped screw in seconds using a rubber band – CNET

Alina Bradford

Whether you’re trying to repair electronics or build something new, there’s nothing worse than realizing you’re going to need to remove a stripped screw.

Luckily, it’s an easy fix if you have a rubber band laying around. Simply place the rubber band over the screw head and push your drill or screwdriver into the rubber band while you remove the screw. That’s all there is to it. The rubber band fills the gaps in the screw’s head and grips the drill bit or screwdriver blade.

The trick is using a rubber band that is at least as wide as your screw. Thinner rubber bands just won’t work. If you don’t have any rubber bands, sewing elastic (like the kind in waistbands) works in a pinch, too.

How to get a free data plan for your iPad – CNET

I tend to think of tablets as “indoor” devices, used primarily at home or the office — places rife with Wi-Fi. But what happens when you go out into the world and need connectivity? Now you have to pay for a 4G plan, right?

Not necessarily. As it has for a while now, T-Mobile offers a free 200MB-per-month data plan to anyone with a compatible tablet. I don’t mean “free if you’re already a T-Mobile customer” or “free with your existing smartphone plan” or “free not including several dollars in taxes and fees, not to mention whatever overage charges you’ll almost certainly incur.”

I mean free. No strings attached, no credit card required, no b.s.

A free SIM card and 200MB of free data every month? Yes, please.

Rick Broida/CNET

If I sound overly enthusiastic about this, it’s because I fully expected some kind of catch when I set up an iPad Air just the other day. See, I’ve always had Wi-Fi-only iPads, but for business purposes I needed one with GPS capabilities, and that meant a data-capable model (or “Wi-Fi + Cellular,” to use Apple parlance).

But I didn’t need a lot of data, so I decided to try the T-Mobile option. If you’re interested in doing likewise, here’s what you’ll need:

A compatible tablet. You can try T-Mobile’s device-compatibility checker to see if yours qualifies, but I’ll make it simple: If you have a Wi-Fi-only tablet, it doesn’t. As noted above, you need a model that also has cellular capabilities. And, it must be unlocked and/or compatible with GSM networks. Virtually all iPad Air and iPad Air 2 models fit that description, because Apple sells them unlocked and with support for both CDMA and GSM.

A T-Mobile SIM card. Ah, this must be the catch, right? It’s not like T-Mo is going to give you a SIM card. Except, yeah, as of press time, you can get a free SIM when you bring your own tablet to the service — even if you’re opting for the free data plan. Just enter promo code FREESIM at checkout.

Update:My bad! Apparently to get the free SIM card you must sign up for a paid monthly plan (starting at $20), though you could most likely downgrade to the free plan later on. I already had one on hand, so my process was a little backwards. Thankfully, as noted in the comments, you can buy a SIM card for just 99 cents when you use promo code SIM99.

Once you have the card, you simply pop it into the tablet’s SIM slot. On my iPad Air, this immediately brought up an activation window, at which point I thought, “Here it comes: activation fee.” But, nope, I was able to choose the free 200MB plan without so much as a mailing address or credit card, and in a matter of minutes I had my megabytes.

Needless to say, your mileage may vary with a non-Apple tablet. I don’t know if the activation process is as automated on, say, a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2. You may need to work through T-Mobile’s Web site instead.

What happens if you hit your 200MB cap? Exactly that: your connectivity runs out. If you want more, you pay for more, a-la-carte. That’s awesome, because it means you won’t end up with some unexpected surprise bill because you went over your allotment without realizing it.

Obviously 200MB won’t satisfy all users’ mobile-data needs, but it’s a great option for folks who occasionally step away from Wi-Fi and want to stay connected. T-Mobile deserves due credit for this free and painless data plan.

This tool will uncover anyone’s email on LinkedIn – CNET

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

A while back we told you about Charlie, a free app that monitors your calendar and researches contacts you’re meeting with. An hour before the scheduled time, it sends you notable information about the person you’re meeting and the company he or she works for.

Now, Charlie has released a Chrome extension designed to make it easier to connect with LinkedIn users. The extension will reveal a LinkedIn user’s email address and provide the option to copy the email address, compose an email or request Charlie to research and send you information about that person. The research information is similar to what the app sends before a meeting, containing professional achievements and news.

You can install the extension from the Chrome Web Store. After installing and connecting the extension to your Google account, visit a random LinkedIn profile. You’ll find a new button labeled “Charlie Email Finder.”

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

Click on the button, and a few seconds later Charlie will present you with the email address and buttons for the follow-up actions.

Update: Shortly after publishing this article, the CEO of Charlie, Aaron Frazin, reached out to clarify how the extension worked. According to Frazin, Charlie does not somehow bypass any security protocols put in place to protect a user’s LinkedIn account email address. The service simply takes a guess using its own algorithms at what the person’s email address is.

Randomly browsing through my contact’s LinkedIn profiles, I encountered only one profile where the app was unable to provide an email address (and it was my own profile, which was odd). All other profiles returned the proper email address for the contact.

According to the company’s email announcing the new feature, the extension will remain free while it’s in beta, but no further information about pricing or beta length was available.

There’s another emoticon keyboard hiding in your iPhone – CNET

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Jason Cipriani/CNET

At some point, you’ve probably seen the infamous shrug emoticon: ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Emoticons (not to be confused with emoji) are a series of characters put together to make a face, animal or some other funny character. Think of emoticons as the traditional smiley face — with a lot more personality.

Crafting an emoticon like the shrug-face takes a lot more work than an emoji, though. Have you ever looked at some of the emoticons shared on Facebook or Twitter and wonder how much free time someone used in order to create a funny emoticon? Me too.

But there’s good news! You no longer have to try and figure out the digital equivalent of a Rubik’s cube. On Thursday Mashable uncovered a hidden emoticon keyboard on your iPhone.

Follow the process below to activate and use the hidden feature:

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

• Launch the Settings app.
• Tap on General, followed by Keyboard.
• Select Keyboards, then Add New Keyboard.
• Scroll down and select Japanese from the list of available keyboard languages.
• Last, select Kana.

After exiting the settings app, launch Messages (or any other app where you can enter text). With the keyboard visible, tap on the globe icon to switch between keyboards.

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

A split-second after activating the Kana keyboard, an emoticon face will show up on the bottom row. Select it, followed by the up arrow (as pointed out in the screenshot above).

A list of emoticons will then be displayed, available for you to select with a tap. I’m not sure about the meaning of most of them, but I’d be lying if I didn’t think they were fun.

*(^o^)/*

I think that’s a celebration emoticon. If not, it is now!

Here’s a list of emoticons and their meaning – CNET

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What do these emoticons mean?

Jason Cipriani/CNET

If you unlocked the emoticon keyboard on your iOS device, then bookmark this page.

As noted in the guide that detailed how to activate the hidden keyboard on your iOS device, it’s not easy to figure out just what each of the emoticons actually mean.

Thankfully, the website linked to above lists various Asian emoticons and their respective meanings.

For example, (^3^) translates into kiss. I can kind of see it.

(^^^) is a shark (I don’t see it).

Perhaps my favorite on the list, however, is d-_-b, which stands for “listening to music.” And if you’re going to send an emoticon about listening to music, you should follow it up with one that shows off your dance moves:

♪┏(・o･)┛♪┗ ( ･o･) ┓♪┏ ( ) ┛♪┗ (･o･ ) ┓♪┏(･o･)┛♪

If you can’t find the emoticon you want to use on that list, Wikipedia has another list of common Western and Eastern emoticons. The former are the more traditional smiley faces, with the latter looking similar to those found in the hidden keyboard.

Do you have any recommended resources for emoticons? If so, share them in the comments below.

Apple Music: Like button vs. add button – CNET

When listening to a particularly enjoyable song on Apple Music, two buttons vie for your attention: the heart and the plus sign. Should you tap the heart to like the song, or should you tap the “+” to add it somewhere? And while we’re on the topic, what’s the story with the star button that shows up in place of the heart button when listening to some but not all radio stations?

First, let’s define what the heart button does and what the “+” button does.

The heart button lets Apple get to know you better, specifically so it can make better suggestions for the For You tab. Tap the heart button for a song or an album — or a playlist you find on the For You tab — and you are telling Apple that you like that song or collection of songs and want to see more music like that in your For You feed.

The “+” button does not affect the For You feed but adds a song, album, or For You playlist to the My Music tab of Apple Music. The My Music section is your personal library of songs that you added from Apple Music or purchased or imported from iTunes. You’ll see your three most recently added items at the top of My Music. Below, you can browse your My Music library by Artists, Albums, Songs, Music Videos, Genres, Composers and Compilations.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

My Music makes it easier to find specific favorites; instead of browsing or searching Apple Music’s entire library, you can peruse a smaller collection of your favorites on the My Music tab. And if you want to download a song, album or playlist to your phone so you can listen to it when you are offline, you will need to add it to My Music first. Only items that have been added to My Music feature the download button (the cloud with the down arrow). You’ll also need to add a song to My Music if you want to wake up to it with your iPhone’s alarm.

Now you know how the heart button and “+” differ from one another, there’s another button that shows up occasionally that may confuse you: the star button. It’s confusing because it shows up on some — but not all — radio stations in place of the heart button.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

If you are listening to a radio station that Apple Music created, you’ll see the heart button for each song, which you now know helps you fine tune the For You tab by letting Apple Music know you like the song that’s playing. If you are listening to a radio station that you created based on a song or album, then the heart button is replaced by a star button. Tap the star button to fine tune your radio station by choosing Play More Like This or Play Less Like This. (There is also a third option to Add to iTunes Wish List for songs you don’t already own.)

Lastly, there is a somewhat hidden way to fine tune your For You feed by telling Apple Music that you don’t like one of its For You suggestions. Tap and hold on an album or playlist on your For You feed (without pressing so hard that you 3D Touch it) and a menu will spring forth with a line reading I Don’t Like This Suggestion. Tapping on this line is frustrating because there is no feedback from the app that it registered your tap or immediate removal of the offending album or playlist.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

Even after pulling down to refresh the For You feed or even restarting the app, the suggestions I told Apple I didn’t like still remained. I can only assume my dislikes will help shape future suggestions.

For more Apple Music tips, learn how to juggle tracks with Up Next, shuffle all songs or a genre, view the album of a song you encounter and replay Beats 1 radio shows you missed.

Here’s how to tune in to tonight’s Republican debate online – CNET

Dennis Van Tine/MediaPunch/Corbis

Republican presidential candidates will take the stage tonight for the ninth presidential debate. This will be the first debate without either Chris Christie or Carly Fiorina, both of whom suspended their campaigns after performing poorly in the New Hampshire primary.

Participants include Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

The debate is scheduled to take place in Greenville, South Carolina, and will be hosted by CBS. It will be moderated by “Face the Nation” anchor John Dickerson, CBS News White House correspondent Major Garrett, and The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel. Coverage is slated to begin at 12 p.m. ET (9 a.m. PT) on CBSN, with the actual debate set to start at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT).

Here are all the different ways to tune in:

• Your local CBS station will broadcast the event live. That’s channel 2 in New York City and channel 5 in San Francisco.
• The network will be providing a live stream of the debate for free on its website.
• It will also be streamed live on the CBSN app for Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, Xbox One and Amazon Fire TV.

Want to follow along or contribute to the conversation on social media? Use the hashtag #GOPDebate.

Also, you can visit our sister site, CBSNews.com, for ongoing coverage of the 2016 election.