Some useful tech tips

Put your USB drive in the right way the first time

Plugging in a USB cable the right way feels like a no-brainer. Then why do we get it wrong on the first try so often? Here’s the secret: Grab any USB cable sitting around your house. See that symbol on one side? It’s not just branding or decoration. That symbol will point up if you’re plugging in horizontally and if you’re plugging a cable vertically, the USB symbol will face you. Now you know.

Reopen a closed browser tab

It happens all the time. You have a dozen tabs open in your browser and accidentally close the wrong one. You could open up your browser’s history and reopen the tab from there, or you can do it with a couple of keystrokes.  Hit Ctrl+Shift+T on your PC or Command+Shift+T on your Mac to automatically reopen the tab you just closed.

Use your voice in Google Docs

I bet you already use your phone’s speech-to-text to dictate text messages or even emails, but did you know you can do the same in Google Docs? It’s free and it works surprisingly well.  Open a new document in Google Docs, then enable Voice Typing from the Tools menu. Then start dictating. Voice Typing recognizes commands like “comma,” “period,” and “new paragraph” as well.

Download movies on Disney Plus

Each streaming service has a different policy for downloading video content and watching offline. Netflix was a major holdout until 2016. But Disney Plus allowed this option right away. The download icon is located at the bottom of the menu. Using the Disney Plus app, you can also download as many titles as your hard drive can hold.