➡️ Lightning fast: In Microsoft Word, use Ctrl + the arrow keys to quickly move through words or paragraphs. Combine with Shift to select text as you go.
Reset your social media algorithms
Still stuck in election season on your social media feed? Or maybe you bought one bottle of perfume and now Big Tech thinks you’re launching a beauty empire. Algorithms are smart, but they don’t know when you’re ready to get back to your regularly scheduled programming, like cat videos and memes. Here’s how to reset your feed and take control of what you see.
Start with Facebook
Goodbye, annoying ads. It only takes a minute to kick out the things you no longer want to see.
🛠️ The fix: Filter your advertising topics by going to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Account Center > Ad Preferences > Customize ads.
Now, on to YouTube
Say your family is staying with you for the holidays and your niece is watching cartoons on your YouTube account all day long. Now that’s all YouTube recommends. Delete your search history to get things back to normal.
🛠️ The fix: On the YouTube app, tap You to bring up your History. Tap the cog icon > Settings > Manage All History. At the bottom, you’ll see DELETE with a blue down arrow. Tap from the dropdown menu to delete videos from today, a custom range or all time. Click X to remove items individually, if you prefer.
Going forward, turn off your viewing history any time you don’t want those vids in your algorithm. You can set your video and search histories to autodelete, too. Now your YouTube is back to how you like it, with my video podcast at the very top. You’ll love it!
TikTok tracks your habits
TikTok’s algorithm is built to keep you on the app. Every time you like, follow or comment on something, it tells the algorithm you’re interested in a video, and more videos like it will pop up on your For You page. Disliking a video or writing a nasty comment doesn’t matter, by the way; you still kept watching.
🛠️ The fix: Reset your feed. Open your Profile in the bottom right corner then press the three lines at the top right > Settings and Privacy > Content Preferences > Refresh Your For You Feed > Continue.
Fine-tune Instagram
🥳 I’m gonna live to 94: That’s according to the viral Death Clock app that’s all over social media, with people sharing eerie “save the date” results. Drawing from over 1,200 life expectancy studies with 53 million participants, the app analyzes your diet, cholesterol, blood pressure, exercise, stress and sleep to calculate your expiration date. PSA: After you answer the questions, the app tries to sell you a membership. Just click the faint gray “X” in the top left corner to see your results for free.
🖥️ A solid CCleaner alternative: Microsoft released a new version of its free PC Manager app for Windows 10 and 11, and it’s way better. You can view your internet speed in real time from the taskbar and delete temp and unnecessary files even faster. Bonus: On Windows 11, you can integrate it directly into your widgets. Go get it, my Windows friends.
Nice try, Microsoft: The new Bing Wallpaper refreshes your desktop daily, but it’s also pulling some shady, malware-like moves. Hidden tricks include auto-installing Bing Visual Search, pushing Edge as your default browser, and decrypting cookies from Chrome and Firefox. Don’t use it.
Welcome to the 21st century: You can finally save WhatsApp messages as drafts. Your unfinished messages will appear at the top of your chat list. Look for Draft in green under your contact’s name to the left of your saved message.
The free video editor does it all: VLC is a free, open-source media player that plays almost every audio and video file format in existence. It runs quickly, and there are no ads. Love that. It’s also simple to use.
📅 Outlook hack: Drag and drop emails to create appointments or tasks. Open Outlook, grab the email you want and drag it onto the Calendar or Tasks icon in the bottom-left panel. A new window will pop up. Now, just edit the details like the subject line or time and hit Save & Close.
🧼 Give your feed a refresh: Instagram is testing a feature that lets you reset your algorithmic suggestions for your Feed, Reels and Explore sections. Head to Settings > Content Preferences > Reset Suggested Content. Note: This reset doesn’t delete anything and won’t change the ads you see.
📝 Spellcheck your ALL CAPS: By default, Microsoft Office programs and Outlook don’t spellcheck words written in all caps, so your BIG TITLES might be full of typos. To fix this in Office apps, go to File > Options > Proofing and uncheck Ignore words in UPPERCASE. For Outlook, go to File > Options > Mail > Editor Options > Proofing and uncheck Ignore words in UPPERCASE.
Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: Real-time AI-powered translation to communicate in other languages. It even simulates your voice. Expect the initial version with support for up to nine languages early next year. Bonus: Soon, Teams will recap visual content (like PowerPoint slides) shared on-screen during a meeting. Thank goodness … I hate presentations.
🔢 Undo it: You’re doing math on your calculator app and one wrong tap ruins everything. Not anymore. On a touchscreen device, swipe right or left to delete the last character. How do you make a seven even? Subtract the ‑s.
Drowning in emails? Stay afloat with custom email filters in Outlook. Open Outlook on the web and click the Settings (gear icon) in the top right corner. Choose Email > Rules > Add new rule, then click Name to name your rule > Add a condition > Add an action. For example, Newsletters > The Current > Mark as important. Aren’t you smart?!
Next time you need a meeting or reminder on the cal: Tell Siri or Google Assistant what your plan is, along with a date and time. For example, say, “Hey, Siri, set up a lunch meeting with Bob tomorrow at 1 p.m.” or “OK, Google, remind me to thaw the steaks tomorrow at 8 a.m.” Nice.
Keep your intimacy wrapped up: The makers of a new app, Camdom, call it a “digital condom” against revenge porn. Camdom blocks all cameras and microphones when two phones are placed together and the app is activated. If one person tries to sneak a pic, an alarm buzzes. Better latex than never.
Out the door, dinosaur: Microsoft is ending support for its Windows Mail, Calendar and People apps. Starting Dec. 31, 2024, you’ll lose the ability to send and receive emails through Mail. Microsoft wants everyone on its new Outlook app. Here’s the official exporting guide for your Mail emails and contacts. FYI: The Outlook app is slow, so you might want to switch to a different email client altogether. Thunderbird is a good free option.
Microsoft Edge can’t take a hint: The browser is importing your Chrome browsing data and tabs without asking. Luckily, you can stop it. When you see the pop-up from Edge to Enhance your browsing experience with Copilot in Microsoft Edge, click the tiny white X in the upper right corner and close it. (It’s tiny — you might have to squint to see it.)
🔎 FYI, Google users: Next time you need help, there’s a search box where you can type what you want to do in everyday language. It sure beats digging around in the tool menus. In Sheets, you can type Remove column, or, in a Doc, try Who last edited this? Handy!
🎞️ Coming to (paid) Google Workspace in the next few days: Google’s AI-powered Vids app pops out presentations with just a prompt. Describe what you want, drop in files or documents, and Gemini does the rest. The app adds stock footage, generates a script and provides an AI voiceover. Will it make presentations better? Sitting through a PowerPoint presentation is like a mix between a root canal and a colonoscopy … but without the luxury of anesthesia to take the edge off.
💻 So long, farewell: The latest version of Windows 11 (24H2) isn’t just routine updates; it also removes some apps, including WordPad, Paint 3D and Tips. To update, go to Settings > Windows Update and enable Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available. FYI, support for Windows 10 ends on Nov. 14, 2025.