What's the Difference Between a Power Strip and a Surge Protector?

Did You Know? The position of the Arctic Circle is not fixed and, over the course of the slow and cyclical 40,000 year shifting of the Earth’s axial tilt, it fluctuates by a margin of two degrees—at the point of the cycle we’re now in, it is drifting northwards at a rate of 49 feet (15 meters) per year. Geek Trivia Which Of These Early Computers Had A Critical Defect That Erased Removable Media? VIC-20 → Apple III → Coleco Adam → Tandy TRS-80 → Advertisement WinX Video Converter Full License Giveaway | Latest 5.12.0 WinX Video Converter can do much more than swap file formats. It has the most optimization choices of any converter. Upscale 1080P to 4K, downscale 4K to MP4, convert among any formats, download video with best resolution and size - it does all jobs expertly. Download your free copy today 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 How to Add Custom User Tags to Reddit How to Change Device Names on Google Wifi What’s the Difference Between a Power Strip and a Surge Protector? How to Change the Clock Face on the Echo Spot How to Clear Your MacBook’s Touch Bar and Secure Enclave Data How to Manage Podcasts in Google Play Music How to Tame Your Chromecast’s Background Data Usage How to Speed Up Your Old, Slow iPhone or iPad Today's Review Geek Articles Best Desk Toys for Entertaining Yourself During Conference Calls Google and Apple Are Killing It With Photo Tech Geek Comic Today's Tech Term Wugging Wugging is a slang term used to refer to “web use giving”, a charitable activity for raising money via the Internet using a charity-sponsored search engine and/or affiliate programs, with no cost to the web users. 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. Apple's official apology about the whole battery/performance thing "Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29." Not bad. [Apple] Android Parallel Tasks Incoming With Chrome OS 64 Currently Android apps stop running when they lose focus, but that could change with Chrome OS 64. [Chrome Unboxed] Apple's flagship store in Chicago wasn't designed to handle snow. No one told the genius designers that there's snow in the Windy City, apparently. [Spudart] Kodi is coming to the Xbox One Kodi started as XBMC, or Xbox Media Player. The return won't require any workarounds to install, but there will be a few limitations. Still, pretty cool they're getting back to their roots. How to Add Custom User Tags to Reddit If you’ve spent any time at all on the Internet, odds are pretty decent that you’ve encountered Reddit, the link-sharing social network and discussion platform. And if you’ve spent any time at all on Reddit, odds are approximately 100% that you’ve encountered jerks. Not that Reddit is inherently jerky, mind you—it’s just that there are millions of users posting links and comments daily. Unless you’re specifically limiting your viewing to the /r/Aww subreddit, you’re mathematically certain to encounter a certain level of dickish behavior. Read This Article → How to Change Device Names on Google Wifi One of the most valuable features of Google Wifi for me is the ability to watch my network activity on a per-device level. The thing is, a lot of devices don’t correctly report themselves to the router, so it’s hard to tell what is what. Here’s how to figure it out, then change the name. Read This Article → What’s the Difference Between a Power Strip and a Surge Protector? Surge protectors often look just like power strips, but not all power strips are surge protectors. Only surge protections actually help protect your gadgets against power surges. Many power strips are just glorified extension cords without any protection. But you can tell whether a strip provides surge protection with just a few seconds of examination. Read This Article → How to Change the Clock Face on the Echo Spot Amazon’s Echo Spot makes for a fantastic bedside alarm clock, and there are a handful of clock faces to choose from. Here’s how to change the clock face to find one that suits your tastes. Read This Article → How to Clear Your MacBook’s Touch Bar and Secure Enclave Data Planning on selling or giving away your MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar? Even if you wipe your Mac and reinstall macOS from scratch, it won’t remove everything: information about your fingerprints and other security features are stored separately, and may remain after your wipe your hard drive. Read This Article → How to Manage Podcasts in Google Play Music Hey, did you know that the Google Play Music app that comes with your Android phone can subscribe to, stream, and download podcasts? The feature works okay, though not nearly as fleshed-out as the various dedicated podcast managers out there. But if you hate having extra apps on your phone, and you’re already an avid user of Play Music, it could be the right move for you. Here’s how it works. Read This Article → How to Tame Your Chromecast’s Background Data Usage Google’s Chromecast is an excellent little streaming device that offers an easy and affordable way to get content from the little screen to the big one. The thing is, when you’re not using it, it can use over 15GB of data every month just idling. That’s a pretty significant amount for anyone on a metered connection. Read This Article → How to Speed Up Your Old, Slow iPhone or iPad Every year, Apple comes out with new iPhones and iPads and a new version of iOS. While it’s a good idea to stay current on software, not everyone can afford to buy new hardware every year. If your iPhone or iPad is showing its age, here are a few tricks to squeeze out a bit more performance. Read This Article → Advertisement Try The New and Improved CleanMyPC 1.8.9 with Smart Uninstaller If you want to clean up your PC the easy way, CleanMyPC is a great tool to get the job done easily, and it will even keep your computer clean automatically. The Uninstaller module can find and erase any app completely with no leftovers. The improved module includes the Safety Database to make uninstallation more accurate and safe. Free Download