Removing Launch Pad when pressing the PS button on macOS Ventura
I hooked up my PS5 controller to my Mac Studio on previous occasions, but never noticed how the Launch Pad comes up in a Games folder, so that we can launch stand-alone apps without the need for a mouse and keyboard. While helpful in principle, I prefer to use the Steam client to bring up its own menu, as it does on the Steam Deck. Naturally Apple have REMOVED the option to make this selectable since macOS 13 Ventura because… nobody knows. Thankfully there’s still a way to remove this feature with the following terminal command....
read moreHow to rescue Melissa from Room 218 in Hotel Dusk: The Electrical Switch Puzzle
I had great trouble solving the Electrical Switch puzzle in Hotel Dusk: Room 215 on the DS 44670 Emulator. The puzzle requires us to flick two switches up at the same time to restore electricity to the room Melisa is hiding in. Sadly the Nintendo DS was never multi touch capable, but this puzzle seemingly requires this. Not going to happen, let alone on an emulator. What’s worse is that trying something will lead either Kyle or Louie to speak a multi-line message, which means we can’t just try again without waiting for 10 seconds....
read moreHow to disable the Windows Page file
I have a lot of RAM in my system and wanted to see if there’s a performance improvement to be had by disabling the page file. By default this is enabled so that Windows apps never run out of memory, but if you’re sure you have plenty, there’s no need for Windows to write a swap file to the hard drive (which of course it does anyway). Here’s how to disable this feature in Windows 11. The process is the same in WIndows 10, although you may see different options than shown in the screenshots. Search for...
read moreHow to boot Windows 11 into Safe Mode
Windows 11 can be booted into a “safe mode” that will allow us to troubleshoot things. How to get there has of course changed and is shrouded in great mystery because apparently Windows 11 is so awesome that there are never any issues to troubleshoot, with it being obviously the best ever operating system of all time (although my experience is pretty much the opposite). Here’s how to boot into Safe Mode: restart your PC at the login screen, hold down SHIFT and choose “restart” (at the bottom right) everything...
read moreHow to add a new Logitech Bolt receiver to your existing mouse/keyboard on Mac and PC
Somewhat lengthy story coming up, so please bear with me here. The actual setup procedure is described further down in this article (for TLDR readers). So I’ve upgraded my Logitech multi-device keyboard and mouse recently. I’ve been using my old MX Craft keyboard and MX Master 3 mouse on both a PC and Mac, switching from one to the other, and occasionally a third Linux machine. This worked well, and had it not been for Logitech not supporting the Craft on their latest Options+ software, I wouldn’t have upgraded (that and...
read moreHow to disable the CIRCLE thing when long-pressing pens in Windows 11
Windows Ink has an extremely annoying feature we’ve come to hate when it comes to drawing with pens and tablets: that super annoying circle thing that is displayed when we long press to emulate a right-click. Graphic apps rely on us being able to do this, and Windows Ink gets in the way. In the past I’ve just disabled Windows Ink altogether, but I now have a device that relies on it and wanted to just remove the circle. Thankfully it can be done, in both Windows 10 and 11! Here’s how: open Control Panel (searching is the...
read moreHow to securely erase a hard drive on Windows
Formatting a hard drive, no matter if we use the quick or slow option, will not destroy data. It merely marks all sectors containing data as “available” so that the next save process will use them, overwriting existing data. The difference between the “quick” and “regular” format options in Windows is that quick will update the TOC, while “full” will also check each sector for errors and mark defective ones, hence the operation takes longer. Such data can be recovered, although it is a lengthy...
read moreHow to see all games in your EA Origin Account via the website
EA’s Origin Launcher has a reputation of being a bit of a mess, although I’ve never had issues with it. It is being replaced with the EA for Windows app, although the Mac doesn’t have such counterpart yet and still uses Origin. For those of us who do not want to install either, and just want to check which games we’ve collected through EA, there’s literally no easy or sane way to get there via the EA or Origin website… unless you know where to look. Here’s how to see all your EA games on their Help...
read moreHow to update your Xbox Controller Firmware from Windows
I have a ton of PlayStation controllers, but some Windows apps prefer a native Xbox controller so a month ago I bit the bullet and bought one. Huge mistake. The thing worked when connected via USB, but I had no luck connecting it to basically ANYTHING wireless. Two Windows PCs, iOS devices, Steam Deck – nothing worked. If I got lucky it paired, then never worked for anything. What a piece of junk indeed! Turns out I’m not the only one with this problem, and apparently there’s a way to update the firmware on these pieces of...
read moreHow to choose British spell checking with a US Keyboard on macOS
Here’s a tip I didn’t know about: there is an easy way to change what language is checked while you’re typing on your Mac, regardless of the keyboard layout you’re using. This is set to “automatic by language” by default, and it’s trying to be helpful, but of course it can get in the way of things, especially if you’re working across multiple languages. In most standard Mac apps, head over to Edit – Spelling and Grammar – Show Spelling and Grammar, then at the bottom of this window,...
read more