An Auckland business owner is not happy after police took hours to attend a burglary which left him tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket. Read...

Do you keep any electronics in your bedroom? All the experts say you aren’t supposed to. But my bedroom often doubles as my office, and that means lots of electronics with distracting LED status lights and indicators. In fact, I face the problem of annoyingly bright LEDs all throughout my home, especially in my entertainment center. With my bedroom full of electronics—including a router and modem, which seem to have the brightest LEDs ever made—I rely on LightDims to keep me sane and help me sleep better. It only costs $5 for a sheet of these LED-dimming stickers and it’s well, well worth it. You don’t have to suffer bright LEDs LED status indicators are everywhere—on routers and modems, on laptops while they’re charging, on desktop PC cases, even on wireless chargers. I once kept a wireless charging pad next to my bed, and it had a bright LED on it to let me know that it was indeed charging my phone… while I was sleeping. That’d be fine if it were dim, but it was so annoyingly bright. Some LEDs even blink! The problem isn’t just about the bedroom. It can be annoying in a media center, too, where you want to focus on your TV and not the bright LED on one of the devices connected to it. It’s also not just about your own electronics! I rented a home a few years ago that came with an unbelievably bright home security system control panel in the master bedroom. It lit up the room at night and I couldn’t exactly remove it from the wall since I was a renter. LightDims were the solution I needed, and they were quick to peel off when I moved out. Buy LightDims on Amazon Dim all your annoying LEDs for a few bucks Look, there’s nothing complicated about LightDims. They’re just well-made, elegant, and inexpensive—and they serve an important need because you usually can’t turn off an LED short of cracking open the device and busting out a soldering iron. The best way to deal with an annoying LED indicator light is to use dimming stickers. With LightDims, you get a sheet of custom-cut stickers in multiple sizes and shapes that you can easily peel and stick on top of any annoying LED. When you’re done, they remove cleanly with no sticky residue. And you get about 100 stickers for $5. Actually, they come in two varieties: LightDims Original Strength, which dim an LED light by about 50 to 80 percent in brightness. If an LED isn’t dim enough for you after one sticker, you can stack a second one on top of it. LightDims Black Out Edition, which are designed to block 100 percent of an LED’s light. Great for bedrooms! Can you cover up those annoying LEDs with something else? Yeah, you can. I’ve personally used black painter’s tape in a pinch. But LightDims are convenient, fast, and have a clean look to them. Plus, a sheet is so cheap and lasts long enough that I don’t mind buying it. Buy LightDims on Amazon As is typical on Amazon, you’ll see similar products and knockoffs being sold for a few cents cheaper. But I highly recommend LightDims because they’re the original high-quality product created by a small business. Read...

Udemy launches AI-powered Role Play, enabling professionals to practise business skills through custom simulations and real-time feedback, boosting workplace training. Read...

TL;DR: Accounting can be costly, but small business owners can now score pro-level accounting tools with a one-time payment of $250 for Intuit QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus 2024. For small business owners seeking a reliable and cost-effective accounting solution, Intuit QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus 2024 is now offering a lifetime license for a one-time payment of $249.99 (reg. $699). This version provides robust features designed to streamline your business’s financial management without the burden of recurring subscription fees.? Let’s dive into what QuickBooks comes with to simplify your accounting needs: Enhanced reporting: Access advanced reporting tools, including custom dashboards and reports, to gain deeper insights into your business finances.? Inventory management: Track inventory with improved reports and manage stock more efficiently to prevent shortages or overbuying. Data security: Your business can become vulnerable to bad actors, which is why QuickBooks has AES 256-bit encryption—the industry-leading security standard—to ensure your financial data is protected. User-friendly interface: Navigate through an updated and intuitive interface, all designed to make it easy to manage your business accounting tasks.? With a lifetime license, you’ll never need to pay for a pesky subscription again. This version is optimized for Windows 10 and 11, so be sure that your PC’s operating system meets download requirements before purchasing. Whether you’re a freelancer, contractor, or small business owner, you can streamline your finance management by grabbing this Intuit QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus 2024 lifetime subscription, now available for $249.99 (reg. $699) while supplies last. Intuit QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus 2024 (1 User) for Windows: Lifetime LicenseSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

Broadcom claims many eliminated partners weren`t doing any VMware business. Read...

Most smart TVs and streaming players use a specific tracking feature to snoop on your streaming activities. But Apple’s streaming box doesn’t—or at least, not yet.  Taking an in-depth look at how the Apple TV deals with privacy, Ars Technica reveals that a technology called automatic content recognition, or ACR, isn’t part of the device’s software stack.  A popular feature amongst smart TV and streaming device manufacturers, ACR is a feature that acts like a “detective taking fingerprints,” literally tracking every pixel displayed on the screen and matching them to a massive database of TV programs, all in the effort to find out what you’re watching.  In some cases, ACR is employed in a way that benefits cord-cutters. For example, some Roku TVs will use ACR to find streaming episodes of a show you’re watching via an over-the-air antenna or a cable tuner.   That’s certainly helpful, but here’s the real reason streaming manufacturers love ACR: more cash in their pockets. Advertisers and other third parties will pay handsomely for the viewing data gathered by ACR software, which is often how Amazon, Roku, and other players in the streaming market manage to sell their TVs and streaming players for such low prices.  If the idea behind ACR sounds creepy, it is, and it’s practically everywhere—except in Apple TV streaming boxes, that is.  In its report, Ars Technica notes that Apple doesn’t put ACR in its Apple TV and Apple TV 4K devices, a major plus for privacy-minded cord-cutters.   Ars also praises Apple for being up-front about its Apple TV privacy policies, as well as for giving you the opportunity at setup to choose whether you want your location tracked or if you’ll allow analytics data to be sent back to Apple.  Now, that’s not to say Apple gets perfect marks for the Apple TV’s privacy policies. If you sign into your Apple TV using your Apple account, for example, you’ll be sacrificing some privacy, including “data about your activity on and use of” Apple products, Ars Technica notes. While it’s technically possible to use an Apple TV without signing in to your main Apple account, most of us go ahead and do so for convenience’s sake.  This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best media streaming devices. And while Apple hasn’t yet deployed ACR on its Apple TV boxes, it certainly could in the future, particularly if it chooses to get into the ad-supported streaming business.  But for now, at least, the Apple TV is still missing ACR. Thank goodness. Read...

I had a desktop gaming rig built for me about 10 years ago. I chose large and chunky parts, which the tower reflected in its sheer enormity. The size of it meant that it was never going to be something I could place on my desk without it looking out of place. It was heavy too. But the base was skinny, so it wobbled when I moved it. I figured if it fell off the side of my desk it was going to cause some serious damage — if not to me, then my floor. So, under my desk it went to live, and it stayed there next to my legs as I played endless rounds of Day of Defeat. The position worked from a practical point of view, in that I had more space to spread out on my desk. I was glad it wasn’t blowing hot air anywhere near my face, too. Overall, I was happy — I had a solid, reliable workhorse that wasn’t an eyesore or a drop hazard. Fast forward six months, and one day I messed all that up when I moved it to get to my AC outlets. The move caused the four tiny feet on the rig’s underside to fall off, first the two on the back and then the two on the front. I thought that was no big deal. It’s not like I needed them to run my games, so I chose to just leave them off. But without those tiny feet to lift the tower an inch off the floor, my PC had to rest on my fluffy carpet. It was probably a year after that, that I started getting throttling problems and big temperature-rise alerts in my PC stats — but I didn’t know why. Had I pushed my fans too far by overclocking, or was something else to blame? A friend diagnosed the problem after running some diagnostics: It turns out I had turned my rig into a dust bucket with my shoddy careless placement on the carpet, such that for the last year it had been pulling in every spec of microfiber, disintegrated skin cells, pollen, and fur from my American Shorthair that it possibly could. Pexels: Atahan Demir Needless to say, it was now chock-full of the stuff — especially the fans. There was so much fluffy dust in there that I could seriously have opened my own ceiling insulation business; it took more than a whole day’s work to clean it all out. Another thing… my PC was so far backed up against my wall that airflow through the rear vents was almost nonexistent. I’ll round up my story by saying that I now know how important it is to find the right place to place my PC. So, I’ll leave you with a few PC placement dos and don’ts that I now go by to keep them running smoothly. The Dont’s of PC placement Place it on carpet when any vents on the underside are going to be blocked and prevent air circulation and where your rig is going to be susceptible to getting dust inside it. Place it so far back against a wall or other object that air circulation at the back is going to be stifled. Place it too close to heaters, hot lights, or other sources of heat. Cover it with anything like a blanket. The Dos of PC placement Place it on a desk or shelf or on a PC stand. Some users like a desk that’s separate from their own desk so that they can free up space. Placing it on a non-carpeted floor is okay too, preferably with elevation. Clean dust out of your gaming rig at least once a year. Related content 6 big PC hardware myths, exposed How to check your PC’s CPU temperature 7 advanced tools every PC enthusiast needs in their toolkit Clean up cable clutter: These tricks create beautiful cord order Read...

Australian asset management leaders are urged to prioritise strategic AI integration over hype, focusing on trust and solving real business problems first. Read...

Business innovator has been named a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to ethnic communities, health and family violence prevention. Read...

Air Rarotonga chief executive officer and owner Ewan Francis Smith has been knighted for services to Cook Islands business and tourism. Read...