What Is NVRAM, and When Should I Reset It On My Mac?

Did You Know? Pluto was considered a planet (75 years before being reclassified as a dwarf planet) for less time than the length of a single Plutonian year (248 Earth years). Geek Trivia The Tallest Dinosaur Was The? Tyrannosaurus Rex → Brontosaurus → Brachiosaurus → Sauroposeidon → Advertisement This Deal Provides You Best Price on World's Top DVD Video Software Digiarty wraps its best DVD video software into a Christmas Gift Pack for only $30.95, with Lifetime Free Upgrade privilege. The Pack includes FOUR applications that help you download video/music from any sites, convert and edit Christmas party video, rip DVD and put movie in your mobile phones, play/AirPlay video on multi-screens and more! Check out this Christmas deal 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. Free Download for First 1000 Readers: Mobile Video Converter and File Manager [Sponsored] How to Create and Edit Lists Using Cortana (and Sync Them with Wunderlist) Is It Better to Download Xbox and PlayStation Games or Buy Them on a Disc? What Is NVRAM, and When Should I Reset It On My Mac? Is It Safe to Remove USB Drives When a Computer Is Asleep? How to Bring Back “Battery Time Remaining” in macOS Sierra How to Paste Text Without Formatting on macOS How to Search for Emoji and GIFs in Android’s Gboard Keyboard How to Download Files and Webpages Directly to Google Drive in Chrome How to Access Windows Remote Desktop Over the Internet Automatially Give to Charity Every Time You Shop with AmazonSmile How to Run Windows Programs from Windows 10’s Bash Shell Geek Comic Today's Tech Term Chicken Boner Chicken Boner is a derogatory slang term for spammers, implying that they are low-lifes who spend all their time in front of a computer while drinking beer and chewing on chicken bones. 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. NASA's next stop—Mars or the Moon? John Grunsfeld and Paul Spudis argue for and against Mars and the Moon. [ArsTechnica] Why time management is ruining our lives All of our efforts to be more productive backfire – and only make us feel even busier and more stressed [The Guardian ] Video Games Are Changing the Hero This is what happens when we can occupy our heroes' bodies. [Nautilus] Free Download for First 1000 Readers: Mobile Video Converter and File Manager [Sponsored] The market of electronic consumers reaches maximum growth at the end of every year. Mobile phones and tablets turn to be the hottest Christmas gifts for family and friends, but how do you get your media onto the new phone? The best way to do it is a mobile-specific video converter and iPhone file manager. Read This Article → How to Create and Edit Lists Using Cortana (and Sync Them with Wunderlist) Cortana now lets you create and manage lists with your voice, and even lets you connect to Wunderlist if you want. Here’s how to do it. Read This Article → Is It Better to Download Xbox and PlayStation Games or Buy Them on a Disc? When you're buying a console game, you've got two options: you can buy it as a download through the PlayStation Store or Xbox Games Store depending on your platform, or as a physical disc from Amazon or a local retailer. Read This Article → What Is NVRAM, and When Should I Reset It On My Mac? If you’re troubleshooting your Mac, you’ve probably seen this advice before: reset your NVRAM. Some forum denizens talk about this as a cure-all solution to Mac instabilities, but what is NVRAM? And what problems can it actually solve? Read This Article → Is It Safe to Remove USB Drives When a Computer Is Asleep? We have all heard the admonition about safely removing USB devices when we are done with them, but what if an operating system is suspended and you decide to simply unplug the USB device then and there anyway? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question. Read This Article → How to Bring Back “Battery Time Remaining” in macOS Sierra The latest macOS update, 10.10.2, has an interesting “feature.” Click the battery icon and you’ll notice that the “Time Remaining” estimate is completely gone. Even worse, there’s no option anywhere to bring it back. Read This Article → How to Paste Text Without Formatting on macOS Copying and pasting text is one of those things everybody who uses a computer needs to know, but even though copy/paste is one of the simplest functions you will learn, it can bring with it one big hassle: special formatting. Read This Article → How to Search for Emoji and GIFs in Android’s Gboard Keyboard Let's be honest here: GIFs and emoji are the new form of communication. As silly as they may seem, they somehow add an additional layer to the way we interact with friends and family over text or instant messages, which can otherwise come off as dry. While emoji has long been a part of Google Keyboard, Google added a way to search them—as well as GIF integration—into the new Gboard update. Read This Article → How to Download Files and Webpages Directly to Google Drive in Chrome We've all downloaded files from the web to our computer. However, if you'd rather download files directly to your Google Drive account, there's an extension for Google Chrome that allows you to do just that. Read This Article → How to Access Windows Remote Desktop Over the Internet By default, Windows Remote Desktop will only work on your local network. To access Remote Desktop over the Internet, you'll need to use a VPN or forward ports on your router. Read This Article → Automatially Give to Charity Every Time You Shop with AmazonSmile You shop on Amazon a lot, right? So why not make Amazon give to charity whenever you do? AmazonSmile is a simple and easy way to give a little money to a charity of your choice every time you buy something on Amazon. If you shop at smile.amazon.com (instead of www.amazon.com), Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price of whatever you buy to your chosen charity. You pay nothing extra, so there’s no reason not to do it. Read This Article → How to Run Windows Programs from Windows 10’s Bash Shell In the Creators Update, Windows 10’s Bash shell now allows you to run Windows binaries and standard Command Prompt commands, right from Bash. You can run both Linux and Windows programs from the same Bash shell, or even incorporate Windows commands into a Bash script. Read This Article → Advertisement Download Windows 10 Simplified ($17 Value) FREE For a Limited Time Fully updated to cover Windows 10, this highly visual guide covers all the new features in addition to the basics, giving you a one-stop resource for complete Windows 10 mastery. Click here to download