The Easiest Ways to Create Animated GIFs on Any Platform

Did You Know? The base of the Ronald Reagan statue, situated within the National Capitol Rotunda within the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., has pieces of the Berlin Wall incorporated into the cornice of the base to memorialize Reagan’s role in the destruction of the wall. Geek Trivia The Country With The Most World Heritage Sites Is? Brazil → France → Italy → India → Advertisement Download Web Hosting for Dummies (Valued at $16.99) FREE for a limited time If you'd like to make the leap from a hosted environment to a self-hosted service, this book is for you. You may be making the move from casual blogging to professional blogging. Or, you might already be self-hosting, but want a good guide to show you how to get more out of your plan. Click here to download Want to Change Your Email Preferences? At some point in the past you subscribed to the How-To Geek newsletter, but if you'd like to change the frequency or unsubscribe, you can do so by clicking the button. Change my Subscription (or unsubscribe) Today's How-To Geek Articles By popular request, we're including a quick list of the daily articles at the top of the daily email as well as the regular format near the bottom. The Easiest Ways to Create Animated GIFs on Any Platform How to Get Android N Features on Your Phone Now with N-Ify What Is “Compatibility Mode” in Microsoft Office? Learn These Handy Shortcuts to Get Around the Windows Control Panel How to Manually Run Your HVAC Fan Using the Nest Thermostat How to Add a Shortcut to Google Keyboard’s Settings in Andorid’s App Drawer How to Create a Windows Shortcut to Open a Specific Profile in Chrome How to Recover an Unsaved Microsoft Office File PSA: Don't Shut Down Your Computer, Just Use Sleep (or Hibernation) Geek Comic Today's Tech Term Bluesnarfing Bluesnarfing is a hacking technique that allows a hacker to gain access to the data stored on Bluetooth-enabled devices that are in discoverable mode without alerting the device’s user. Once the hacker has gained access, they can remotely access a user’s calendar, contact list, emails, images, text messages, and IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity). What We're Reading This section contains what we're reading from around the web, along with commentary from our editors. Think of it like your daily digest of the most interesting things online. Finding the Brightest Organism On Earth Many organisms can glow brightly even in the dead of night, but it is surprisingly hard to figure out which one is the most dazzling. [BBC] New technique produces real randomness 'Extractor' removes predictability from computer-generated numbers [Science News] Watch this incredibly sweet short about growing up with video games While this short animated film is heartwarming for anyone, it's a special dose of nostalgia for all those siblings that were perpetually player two. [The Verge] Forced Windows 10 upgrades push users to dangerously disable Windows Update Some Windows 7 and 8 users would rather chance a malware infection than an involuntary Windows 10 upgrade. [PC World] The Easiest Ways to Create Animated GIFs on Any Platform Animated GIFs are everyone’s new favorite way of expressing themselves. They’ve become the moving equivalent of the emoticon, so it can be helpful to know how to create your own. Read This Article → How to Get Android N Features on Your Phone Now with N-Ify Android N will bring a lot of new, innovative, and useful tools to Android, but if you don't have a modern Nexus device, then it's hard to say how long you'll be waiting to get your hands on some of these new goodies. Fortunately, if you're running a rooted device with the Xposed framework installed, getting many of N's new features is only a quick download away. Read This Article → What Is “Compatibility Mode” in Microsoft Office? When you open a document created in an older version of Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in a modern version of Office, you may see “Compatibility Mode” appear after the name of the document in the titlebar. This changes the way the document appears and prevents you from using some modern features. Read This Article → Learn These Handy Shortcuts to Get Around the Windows Control Panel Ever since Vista, Windows’ Control Panel has been a little difficult to navigate. Windows 10’s new Settings app is better, but not as feature filled. Here’s an easier way to get to the page you want: Use these shortcuts and the Windows Run menu. Read This Article → How to Manually Run Your HVAC Fan Using the Nest Thermostat If you don’t want to turn on the A/C in your house, but want to at least keep the air flowing for a bit to reduce any stuffiness, here’s how to use the Nest Thermostat to manually run the fan from your HVAC system. Read This Article → How to Add a Shortcut to Google Keyboard’s Settings in Andorid’s App Drawer Google Keyboard has a ton of customization options, but every tweak requires a trip to its Settings menu. While there's an easy way to access this menu from the keyboard itself, there's also another way: through the app's icon in the app drawer. Unfortunately, this isn't enabled by default—but with one last trip into the Settings menu, a simple switch will make it possible. Read This Article → How to Create a Windows Shortcut to Open a Specific Profile in Chrome Chrome allows you to create multiple profiles, each with a different set of bookmarks, search history, settings, toolbar buttons, among other things. You can switch among your profiles, each profile opening in a separate Chrome window. Read This Article → How to Recover an Unsaved Microsoft Office File You’ve just closed an Office document and accidentally clicked Don’t Save. Or maybe Word crashed or your laptop lost power before you remembered to save what you were working on. We’ve all felt that pain, but all is not necessarily lost. By default, Office applications automatically save temporary backup copies of your documents as you work and there’s a good chance you can recover them. Read This Article → PSA: Don't Shut Down Your Computer, Just Use Sleep (or Hibernation) In this day and age, there’s no reason to shut down your computer, then sit through the boot-up process when you want to use it. Save yourself time by putting your computer to sleep or hibernating it instead. Read This Article → Advertisement Download Web Hosting for Dummies (Valued at $16.99) FREE for a limited time If you'd like to make the leap from a hosted environment to a self-hosted service, this book is for you. You may be making the move from casual blogging to professional blogging. Or, you might already be self-hosting, but want a good guide to show you how to get more out of your plan. Click here to download