How to Make Your Smartphone, Computer, or Tablet Always Listen For Voice Commands

Always-listening voice commands are a big thing now. You don’t need an Xbox one or Amazon Echo for this — just make your phone, tablet, or computer always listen for voice commands.

These features don’t send everything you say to a central server. They just analyze the sound nearby until they notice you’ve said the activation phrase, and then they kick into action.

iPhone & iPad

But you can have your iPhone and iPad always listen for voice commands when it’s plugged in and charging. To activate this feature, open the Settings app, tap General, and tap Siri. Activate the “Allow “Hey Siri”” option here.Google added this feature to Android first, but Apple has followed — well, tentatively. There’s no way to have Siri on your iPhone or iPad always listening for your voice — Apple’s devices just don’t have the low-power audio processing chip they need for this feature.

When your iPhone or iPad is plugged in and charging, you can just say “Hey Siri” out loud to activate Siri. So, if you plug it in every night when you go to bed, you can say “Hey Siri” followed by “Set an alarm for 7 a.m.” to set an alarm for the next morning. You shouldn’t have to pause after saying “Hey Siri” — just keep talking normally.

Android

To enable this feature, open the “Google” app in your app drawer, tap the menu button at the top-left corner of the app, tap “Settings,” tap “Voice,” and tap “”OK Google” detection.”Android 5.0 Lollipop and 4.4 KitKat offer support for starting a voice command by just saying “OK Google” even when the screen is off, assuming your device has the hardware to support it. Even if you don’t have the special hardware, you can use “OK Google” from anywhere when your device’s screen is on or when it’s charging.

By default, it’s often just enabled for “From the Google app,” which allows you to say “OK Google” and start a voice command from within the Google app. You can also select “From any screen” and “OK Google” will work in any app when your screen is on — or while charging it. You may also be able to choose “Always on,” depending on your device’s charger. Choose this option and you can start using voice commands even when your device’s screen is off. The options here allow you to control whether personal results are shown when your screen is locked.

Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS

These features haven’t really made their ways to desktop operating systems. Microsoft is working on Integrating Cortana into Windows 10, but it’s not available yet. Apple hasn’t integrated Siri into Mac OS X.

Google has integrated “OK Google” support into Google Chrome. By default, you can click the microphone icon on the new tab page or Google.com to start a voice search.

But you can also have Chrome listen for “OK Google” so you don’t have to click that icon. Visit the Settings page in Chrome and search for “OK Google” — or click “Advanced settings” and scroll down to the Privacy section. Enable the “Enable OK Google” check box.

You can now open the new tab page or Google’s homepage and just say “OK Google” out loud to start a voice search. It doesn’t actually listen all of the time.

Google’s experimenting with adding always-on “OK Google” search to Chromebooks so it’ll be available whenever your screen is on. Expect to see this feature in future versions of Chrome OS.

Yes, there are voice commands built into Windows and Mac OS X but they’re probably not the sort of commands you’re looking for. They’re designed for navigating your desktop and are convenient, but they’re not the kind of smart commands you’ll find on a modern mobile device. They may still be useful — feel free to give them a look.

How to Force-Quit an Application on Any Smartphone, Computer, or Tablet

Ctrl+Alt+Delete isn’t just necessary on Windows and other desktop operating systems. Applications can freeze or get stuck in bad states on modern iPhones, iPads, and Android devices too.

Every operating system has a way to forcibly end misbehaving applications. After you do, you can relaunch them and they should hopefully work properly.

iPhone and iPad

This won’t help you save system resources. You don’t need to do this to close apps just because you’re no longer using them. But, if an app is frozen or otherwise stuck in a bad state, this is a way to force-close it and force it to restart from a clean state.To force-quit a running app on an iPhone or iPad, double-press the Home button to open the list of recently opened applications. Scroll to the left and right to find the app you want to close. Touch the app’s thumbnail and slide it upward and off the screen. The next time you open the app, it will restart from scratch.

Android

Touch one of the apps thumbnails or cards in the list and swipe it to the left or right, moving it off the screen. The app will be closed and will open from a clean state the next time you access it.The easiest way to force-quit apps on Androidis from the recent app switcher, too. Tap the multitasking button to open the list of recently accessed apps. On some devices, you may need to long-press the Home button or perform a different action if there’s no recent apps button.

As with on iOS, this isn’t something you should do unless you really have a reason to. You should generally let Android manage processes on its own — it’s the same reason why you shouldn’t use an automatic task killer.

Windows

Windows 8 has a nicer looking Task Manager, but Windows 7’s works just fine, too. Locate the window or application you want to force-quit and click the ‘End task” button.Use the Task Manager to do this on Windows. You don’t have to use Ctrl+Alt+Delete to open the Task Manager — a quicker way is pressing Ctrl+Shift+Escape. Or, with the mouse, right-click your taskbar and select the Task Manager shortcut.

You can force-quit “Store apps” from the Task Manager on Windows 8. You can also place your finger on the top of the screen and move it down until the app becomes a thumbnail, Move the thumbnail to the bottom of the screen. When it switches from a thumbnail of the currently running application to the generic tile image of the current application, release it. Windows will close the Store app.

Mac OS X

You can also hold the Option key and right-click an app’s icon on the dock. and then click the Force Quit option.On Mac OS X, press Command+Option+Escape to open the Force Quit Applications dialog. You can also just click the Apple menu on your menu bar and select Force Quit. This tool will help you quit those apps.

If you need a more powerful tool that also lists background processes and allows you to kill them, open the Activity Monitor application.

Linux

Linux has its own set of utilities for force-closing desktop applications and killing processes. Each desktop environment includes its own process-management tool — like the Activity Monitor tool on Ubuntu’s Unity and GNOME-based desktops. There’s also the xkill command, which allows you to click a window and immediately close it. And, because this is Linux, there are many other terminal commands for quickly managing those processes.

Chrome OS (and Chrome)

Chrome OS uses Chrome’s task manager. Click the menu button, point to More tools, and select Task Manager to open it — or just press Shift+Esc on a Chromebook. Select one of the processes and click End Process to end it.

This also lets you manage the different processes Chrome uses for web pages, apps, and extensions when you run Chrome on Windows, Mac, or Linux. If a web page or app is frozen, use Chrome’s own Task Manager to identify the misbehaving process and kill it.

There are more powerful options for this, too. Mac OS X and Linux have powerful terminal commands for managing processes, and Windows has PowerShell cmdlets for killing processes. On Android, third-party apps can manage processes, and you’ll also find buttons for forcing apps to close in Android’s list of apps on the Settings screen.

How to Stream Videos and Music to the TV In Your Hotel Room

Hotel rooms still have televisions, and you can put them to use when traveling. Why use your laptop, smartphone, or tablet when you can watch thing son the bigger screen?

For the record, we’re talking about reasonably modern TVs with HDMI ports on the back here. Older TVs without HDMI ports will be more trouble.

Stream From Your Hotel’s Wi-Fi Network With Amazon’s Fire TV

That’s a logical idea — streaming sticks especially are good and tiny, so you could throw them in a bag and hook them up to the HDMI port on the back of your TV. However, there’s one big problem here. Most hotels use “captive portals” for their Wi-Fi, forcing you to provide a password or at least click through a terms of service to connect. These set-top boxes haven’t been designed with this in mind, so there’s been no way to connect most of them to a typical hotel Wi-Fi network.You may want to pack a small streaming stick like the Roku Streaming Stick, Google Chromecast, or Fire TV Stick, or even a larger set-top box like an Apple TV, Roku, or Fire TV.

Amazon recently updated their Fire TV products with support for such captive portals. if you want a small stick you can use to stream content from your hotel’s Wi-Fi network to its TV, Amazon’s Fire TV products are the ones to get. Hopefully other manufacturers (like Google with their Chromecast) will add this feature to their products, too.

Bring an HDMI Cable

Because this doesn’t involve anything wireless, it should just work. There’s just the matter of carrying around an HDMI cable with you and having to fiddle with your laptop.The low-tech way is often the easiest. There’s always the option of getting an HDMI cable, hooking it up to your laptop’s HDMI port or Mini DisplayPort with the appropriate connector, and then plugging it in to the HDMI port you’ll find on the back of your hotel’s television. You can then play anything on your laptop and mirror it on the TV. If you have video files downloaded to your laptop, you can just play them locally and mirror them onto the TV without any Internet connection required. If the hotel offers an Internet connection, you can connect on your laptop and play YouTube, Netflix, or anything else.

Use Miracast for Wireless Streaming (No Wi-Fi Connection Required)

This would actually be an excellent solution because Miracast works over Wi-Fi Direct. If you have a Miracast dongle, you can plug it into the TV’s HDMI port and stream your smartphone, tablet, or laptop’s display wirelessly. The Miracast dongle itself doesn’t have to connect to a Wi-Fi network.Miracast should be the best option here, if only this standard could get off the ground and work reliably. In Miracast’s vision of the future, all those TVs you encounter in a hotel room will eventually have Miracast built in, and you’ll be able to wirelessly stream to them with just a few clicks or taps. Miracast is integrated into Android, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone, assuming you have the appropriate hardware. Miracast is like a wireless HDMI cable — it streams the exact contents of your display to the TV.

Microsoft’s Wireless Display Adapter is a well-reviewed solution for this, but it’s more expensive than a Fire TV Stick that comes with a remote — so you may want to skip the hacky MIracast solutions and just pick up one of those. Roku’s Streaming Stick also recently gained Miracast support.

Be sure your laptop, tablet, or smartphone supports Miracast, too. Be aware that Miracast has had a lot of reliability issues, although some people report that modern dongles and devices are working more reliably.

Most Other Streaming Devices Need a Smartphone Hotspot

If you’re willing to use your smartphone’s hotspot feature, that can also provide an option. This is basically the only way to connect a Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, or another device to wireless Internet in a typical hotel. Obviously, enabling mobile data and streaming content from the Internet will use quite a bit of data, and that will count as tethering data — we hope you have a good amount of tethering data and possibly an unlimited mobile data plan. This probably won’t be a realistic solution for anyone, as video services use a lot of bandwidth and most mobile data plans just aren’t that generous.

Yes, it’s silly that you’d have to connect a Chromecast or similar device to cellular Internet when your hotel has perfectly good Wi-Fi, but Chromecasts and other devices just can’t connect to them. Hopefully other manufacturers will get their acts together and more devices will support those captive portals.

On the other hand, if you luck out and end up in a hotel that offers a Wi-Fi network that “just works” without those obnoxious passwords and click-throughs, any streaming device will be able to connect and work just fine.

So, what should most people do? If you frequently want to stream content to your TV in a hotel and use its Wi-Fi network, we recommend getting a Fire TV Stick. if you’re willing to potentially struggle with issues and have modern, Miracast-capable devices, a Miracast dongle will work well and won’t even require an Internet connection. And an HDMI cable you can connect to your laptop will always work in a pinch.

If you do pack a streaming stick or another HDMI dongle, be sure to unplug it from the TV and take it with you when you leave!

How to Share a Hotel’s Single Wi-Fi Connection With All Your Devices

Many hotels still limit you to one or two devices per room — a frustrating limitation, especially when traveling with someone else. Connection restrictions can apply anywhere you have to log into a Wi-Fi network via a portal instead of a standard passphrase.

The next time you’re in a hotel — or anywhere else — that will only let you connect a single device to the Wi-Fi, use these tricks to connect all the devices you might want.

Connect to the Wi-Fi and Share It – Windows Only

Just creating a Wi-Fi hotspot on your laptop won’t necessarily work. Your laptop’s wireless interface can either connect to a Wi-Fi network or host one — it can’t both connect to a Wi-Fi network and host one at the same time.

That’s the way it usually works, anyway. Windows 7 and 8 have support for creating virtual network interfaces, effectively allowing you to both join a Wi-Fi network and host a Wi-Fi hotspot to share that Wi-Fi network with other devices. You don’t need any special hardware. The freeVirtual Router application for Windows allows you to set this up — it effectively works just like the paid Connectify application, which is a pretty interface on top of this hidden Windows function.

Connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot on your Windows laptop and log in. Install the Virtual Router software and you’ll be able to create a Wi-Fi hotspot on your Windows PC. Connect your other devices to that Wi-Fi network and they’ll connect to the main Wi-Fi network through your laptop. (Mac OS X doesn’t have a similar virtual Wi-Fi interface feature, so you’ll need Windows for this.)

Create a Bluetooth PAN

If the devices you want to connect have Bluetooth hardware, you could potentially use Bluetooth to share the connection with them. This requires creating a Bluetooth “PAN”, or “Personal Area Network.”

For example, on a Mac you can open the Sharing interface in the System Services window and enable Internet sharing over “Bluetooth PAN.” Pair your other devices to the Mac via Bluetooth to take advantage of the PAN and the Mac’s Internet connection. This could be a decent option if all you have available to you is a Mac — as long as your other devices have Bluetooth hardware and support the PAN profile, you’re good to go.

Get Multiple Wi-Fi Adapters

Windows users shouldn’t need to do this, but this method will allow Mac users to use the standard “Internet Sharing” feature in Mac OS X to share the connection from one network interface to another.A computer with several physical Wi-Fi interfaces — for example, a laptop with built-in Wi-Fi and a USB-to-Wi-Fi adapter plugged in — can connect to the standard Wi-Fi interface with one of its Wi-Fi adapters and create a Wi-Fi hotspot with the other one, sharing the Internet connection from one with the other.

It’s just as if you had connected the laptop to an Ethernet port and shared that Ethernet connection over Wi-Fi — this is also a good option if the place you’re at offers Ethernet connectivity. The Ethernet connection may be more stable than the potentially spotty Wi-Fi.

Purchase a WiFi-to-WiFi Router

Be sure to purchase a router designed for the purpose of sharing a Wi-Fi connection, not a pocket-sized router designed for connecting to an Ethernet port and creating a single Wi-Fi network.If you’re thinking in advance, you can purchase a router designed specifically for this purpose. You’ll want a router that can do WiFi-to-WiFi routing. In other words, the router needs to be able to connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot and create its own Wi-Fi network at the same time.

Plug the router in and it’ll create its own Wi-Fi hotspot. You can then connect to it and use the interface to connect the router to your hotel’s Wi-Fi connection and sign in via their captive portal to give every device connected to your Wi-Fi hotspot access to the Internet.

You don’t necessarily need to rely on your hotel’s painfully slow and obnoxious Internet connection .if you have a smartphone with a decent data plan, you can use tethering to share your smartphone’s data connection with your other devices.