Sat. May 30th, 2020

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What Google employees can buy for their home office with that $1,000 allowance

By Grace 1 day ago

A standing desk, an ergonomic mouse, the perfect office chair. Google is giving its work-from-home employees $1,000 to spend on office gear. Here’s what it will get you.

Google is going to reopen its offices on July 6, CEO Sundar Pichai announced this week. The offices will open at 10% capacity and will slowly ramp up to 30% by September, but some employees will continue to work from home indefinitely. For those employees, the tech giant has generously offered each employee $1,000 to outfit their home offices for an extended stay at home.

Here’s what we think those employees might consider buying to make sure their home office is as comfortable as possible, and to stretch that $1,000 as far as possible. Because a thousand bucks might sound like a lot, but it won’t go far once you start shopping. If you’re buying gear or supplies for your own home

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How to install and use the cloudtag file sharing tool

By Grace 2 days ago

Looking for a unique way to share non-sensitive files via the cloud? Look no further than cloudtag.

Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto

There are so many ways to share a file. You can use:

  • Email

  • Dropbox

  • Google Drive

  • iCloud

  • Nextcloud

  • OneDrive

The list goes on and on and on. Recently, while scouring through the Snapcraft store, I ran into one I’d never heard of—cloudtag. This cloud-based tool has one job and it does it pretty well. Said job is sharing files in such a way that anyone with the associated hashtag or link can then download that file.

My guess is your eyebrows are already raised. Read that statement carefully: Anyone with the associated hashtag or link can download the uploaded file.

In other words, this isn’t a service you would ever use for sensitive or private information. Of course, you can always create crazy hashtags and hope no

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How to improve battery life in Android 10

By Grace 3 days ago

If Android 10 battery life has got you down, maybe it’s time to start adding apps to the Battery Optimization feature.

Image: Jason Cipriani/CNET

The Android platform has come a long way since its early beginnings. I remember my first Android phone and how awkward it was to use. Even worse, I remember how bad the battery life was–I was lucky to get four to six hours out of that HTC Hero.

Nowadays however, Android battery life can meet or exceed your daily needs. Given the platform now makes use of artificial intelligence (AI) to help improve the longevity of the mobile power source, it’s become quite impressive. With my Google Pixel 4, I rarely run out of juice by the end of the day. One of the reasons for this is the battery optimization. This tool is what works with AI to improve battery life on the device.

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How to run an SSH connection through Tor

By Grace 4 days ago

Looking for a way to gain a bit more security and privacy for your SSH connections? Jack Wallen shows you how with the help of Tor.

Image: iStockphoto/Nature

SSH is, by design, a fairly secure means of gaining shell access to remote machines. However, there are always ways to eke out a bit more security and privacy from these connections.

One such method is with the help of Tor. With Tor, you can add a level of anonymity and even hide your services from prying/hacking eyes.

I’m going to walk you through the process of making SSH connections over Tor. The process isn’t terribly difficult so anyone that administers SSH should be able to make this work.

SEE: Security Awareness and Training policy (TechRepublic Premium)

What you’ll need

I’ll be demonstrating on two Ubuntu server machines, but the process will work with just about any Linux distribution. You’ll also need

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Graduation Gift Guide: Cool gifts for college and high school grads

By Grace 1 week ago

Find the top tech gifts, gadgets and gear for graduates, whether they’re finishing up high school or heading to their first job.

The tough part is done. We’ve found the best gifts for the high school and college graduates in your life so you don’t have to do the shopping. 

Here’s a roundup of the coolest gift ideas in a range of prices, to suit everyone from your favorite gamer ready to relax this summer, to the outdoorsy type who wants to hike around the world, the tech-focused student who is continuing their studies, or the business minded grad headed to their first serious job.

Disclosure: TechRepublic may earn a commission from some of the products featured on this page. TechRepublic and the author were not compensated for this independent review.





Image: Totallee

The Totallee UV phone sanitizer disinfects your phone with the push of a button. It uses dual

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Developers who stand out bring both technical skills and life experiences to the job

By Grace 1 week ago

Coder, bootcamp founder, CEO and former family therapist, Dave Hoover offers tips to help developers stand out in a crowded job market and explains why companies should focus on growing talent from within.

In this episode of
Dynamic Developer
, I talk with Dave Hoover about how you learn the skills to become a developer, and how companies build dev teams with the right skills for today and tomorrow. Dave is not only founder and CEO of Red Squirrel, a custom software development firm, he is also a coder, author, and co-founder of Dev Bootcamp. The following is an edited transcript of our interview.

From family therapist to software developer

Bill Detwiler: So you know before we talk about what skills developers should have when they want to get into the development field, or talking about companies and how they develop a team with the right skills for today

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