Anthony Rose, iPlayer creator and CEO of 6Tribes
To beat Twitter's 140 character limit, send the first part of your tweet, then reply to your own tweet with the rest. Twitter will display the tweet and the reply as a threaded conversation.
John McFarlane, CEO of Sonos
Wake up to music! This was a life changer for me, setting the alarm on my kids' Sonos so that it wakes them up with their favourite songs. It means they are happy and easier to manage in the morning.
Marc Chacksfield, Content Team Lead, techradar
If you have an Android phone, then save space on your internal memory by heading to the Move to SD card option in the Application Manager section of Settings. Click on any app and you will see a "Move to SD card" option.
On Android 5.0 Lollipop, select Apps from the Settings screen and then tap on the three dots in the top right-hand corner and select "Preferred Installation Location" and choose "Removable SD card", and it will free up internal memory.
Kane Fulton, Computing Editor, techradar
You can speed up OS X Yosemite by disabling transparency effects. Go to Settings, then Accessibility, and click 'Reduce transparency'.
Mike Cowen, Mobile payments expert at MasterCard
If you get an unexpected message relating to mobile payments (such as "here's your activation code to register your card for Apple Pay or Samsung Pay) tell your bank immediately. It may mean that somebody else is trying to register using your card number.
Richard Huddy, AMD Chief Gaming Scientist
For every browser I know, holding down the "CTRL" and "+", and "CRTL" and "-" keys on your keyboard magnifies or shrinks the browser contents. Great for fiddly web sites that use text which is too small for my aging eyes, and also handy for small but high-res displays when you want to cram more in.
Mike Fairman, CEO of giffgaff
Don't pay for expensive IP home surveillance cameras - use an old smartphone and an app likeManything instead.
Patrick Goss, Global Editor-in-Chief, techradar
If your phone has stopped charging unless you wiggle the cable then before you rush out to buy a replacement, try turning the phone off and gently exploring the charging port on your device with the end of a paperclip - you'll be shocked and amazed by the amount of fluff you dig out and it might just fix the problem.
Gemma Morris, Presenter, Swipe, Sky News
When your wireless speaker's run out of battery and you've no time to recharge – use your window-sill acoustics to amplify music from your mobile instead.
Push your handset to the back of your bathroom window and you can even hear it over the sound of your shower.
Jen Andersson, PR Manager Northern Europe, Nvidia
NVIDIA GeForce Experience makes it easy to share your awesome gameplay. Just hit 'Alt+Z' and up pops the Share overlay menu to easily upload directly to YouTube and Twitch. You can even get a friend to join your game if you get stuck on a tough level or want to play in co-op mode.
Chris Tooley, CEO of Lycamobile
Save money calling your closest friends and family by checking out the providers that offer free network-to-network calls without any catches and sign everyone up!
All plans and tariffs – with the exception of pay-as-you-go plans – benefit from free calls to any mobile user on the same provider's network.
Kay-Kay Clapp, Community manager, iFixit
Anyone who has done electronics repair knows how irritating lost screws can be. Using an egg-crate, or an iFixit Magnetic Project Mat, makes it easy to keep track and organize all those small parts and screws.
Matt Hanson, How To Editor, techradar
If Windows is taking a while to boot up you can speed it up by limiting the number of programs that open in the background as it boots. To do this open up the Task Manager (hold down "Ctrl", "Alt" and "Del" keys on your keyboard), and click the "Start-up" tab.
Disable any programs or services you don't want loading at startup by selecting them and clicking "Disable". For more choices on what to load at startup type "msconfig" into Windows 8 and Windows 10's search, or type it into Windows 7's Run text box, and click on the "Startup" tab.
David Emm, Security Researcher at Kaspersky
Don't be frozen into a state of privacy paralysis around how best to protect your privacy online. Instead - complement your security software by: patching your operating system and applications whenever updates become available, setting strong and unique passwords, avoiding files from untrusted sources and sharing personal information with care.
Ilya Zakharov, QA Manager, Rebellion
Listen to your Operating System using the System Tray and Task Manager! Systray was introduced as early as Windows 95 but is very commonly overlooked by most users (that's the bottom-right section of your task bar). Regardless of the hardware (and especially when gaming!) you should always be aware of what's draining your computing power.
More and more applications nowadays try to linger in the background, each and every one of them taking up their share of your memory and CPU. Always try to keep your Systray as clutter-free as possible and only keep the essentials that you want and need in the background.
Stephane Verdy, Product Manager at Canonical
You can customise your Ubuntu desktop and make it our own by adjusting UI settings to your liking. From the 'Appearance' section of the 'System Settings' app, you can change the desktop wallpaper, change the theme, adjust the size of the Unity launcher, and more.
From the 'Displays' section of the 'System Settings' app, you can change the UI scale - very useful if you use a HiDPI display.
James Peckham, Phones Writer, techradar
You can now use WhatsApp for calling friends to save using up those precious minutes. Just hit the phone logo at the top of a conversation to chat over your Wi-Fi or mobile internet connection.
Nick Nguyen, VP Firefox Product
If you are interested to see which third party sites are interacting with the sites you visit on the web there is a Firefox add-on called Lightbeam.
It uses interactive visualizations to reveal the full depth of the Web today, including parts that are not obvious to the average user. The visualization grows with every site you visit and every request made from your browser. You can download and enable Lightbeam from the Add-Ons menu in Firefox.
Chris Wray, Product Specialist, Yamaha AV
It's great to use apps - we love them and so does everyone else! But what if your TV, soundbar, Blu-ray player, satellite box and streaming box all have different apps? It's a pain to use and flip between them, so instead go old school and get a physical universal programmable remote.
You can pick up a macro-able one that is programmable via USB with an on screen user interface for around £30 and you'll never look back. Best part is if you do it right, the whole family can use it easily and it means less headaches and tech support questions.
Dave Kai-Piper, Professional fashion photographer
I always use spot metering for my fashion photography, as the wide range of tones means that other modes aren't suitable. You need to expose for the most interesting part of the shot. The clothes must look right – it's not a problem if faces look to dark or too light.
Damon Muzny, Dell Corporate Communications
Did you know that when you first get a laptop, it's battery isn't optimized? It takes a number of cycles of charging and discharging for the battery to reach optimal longevity. Don't judge battery life on first go round.
Also, keeping your laptop constantly plugged, when you pull it off the charger, it won't necessarily be at 100% because of smart charging protocols. To get a full charge, run your battery all the way down to 3%, right when it's ready to die, then charge it and it will come back to 100%. This will also make the battery last longer for the life of the product.
Chris Hoffman, Managing Editor, MacLife
To make the Mac OS X Finder open each folder in a new window — like it used to in the old days of the Mac — open any folder, then press Command + Option + T (or go up to View and choose Hide Toolbar). Now when you double-click a folder, it will open in a new window.
Robbie Fowler, ex-Liverpool Footballer
Don't drop your phone!
Henry Holland, Fashion Designer
If you don't like how fitness trackers look, don't be afraid to customise them. I've spoken to quite a few friends who work in the fashion industry, I'm not going to mention any names, who do use various wristbands, but they customise them by buying pieces of jewellery from other brands they do find desirable, then pull out the sensors from the fitness tracker and combine it to wear them in a more inconspicuous manner.
Gareth Beavis, Phones & Tablets Editor
Swiping the icon from a notification on your iPhone's lock screen will take you directly to the app - #savedyouatapp
Spencer Hart, Lifestyle Technology Writer, techradar
Don't buy a fitness tracker and expect it to change your life. It's up to you to make changes based on the information it provides.
Lionel Paris, Director Product Marketing, Netgear
Whatever type of line you have at home (DSL or cable) you will need to consider the placement of your Wi-Fi router, as it won't be optimal by default. For DSL, you will need to place your Wi-Fi modem router close to your phone socket and for cable you will need to place your Wi-Fi router close to your cable modem.
However, if you have multiple phone sockets in your house, it's worth trying to move your Wi-Fi equipment to a different socket to see if the Wi-Fi coverage is stronger.
Places to avoid placing your router include, inside a cupboard, next to A/V and electrical cables, under the staircase, in your garage and in the attic.
Steve Poole, character and celebrity photographer
A simple fold-up reflector is such a useful accessory, especially if you're shooting in natural light. Window light is amazing; you can achieve so many different effects just by changing the distance and position, and a reflector can help you control the light, balance it and direct it where you want.
Michelle Fitzsimmons, Managing Editor, techradar
One of the biggest additions I made to my arsenal is an external hard drive to export files from my laptop. It lets me free up space but keep files saved elsewhere (especially good if my laptop were to crash!).
I try to do a backup every 3-5 months to make sure my laptop has enough space and keep things like photos and Word files and PDFs stored elsewhere. There's always a nice boost in laptop performance when I make the file migration, too.
Tuan Nguyen, Editor in Chief, Maximum PC
The best way to get a massive speed bump from your PC is to replace your HDD with an SSD. SSDs are resistant to shock and have no moving parts, use significantly less power, generate no noise, and are 5 to 10 times faster than even the fastest HDDs.
Alastair Jennings, Imaging Lab Manager, Future
It might seem like common sense but before you leave for a photo shoot, make sure you pack a spare battery and ensure your memory cards are clear of data.
Rod Lawton, Camera Editor, techradar
If your camera's not working as you expect and you can't remember what you changed, you can reset it to the factory defaults – but often you have to do this with two menu commands not one:
- Reset shooting settings
- Reset custom/setup settings.
Danny Marshall, EE
Mums and Dads can save missing out on each other's photos of the kids by setting up a joint Dropbox account, activating Camera Upload/Sync on both phones and instantly share photos.
This means you never miss a precious moment no matter how far apart you might be, and at the same time securely back up so you never lose them.
Neil Mohr, Editor, Linux Format
No matter if you use Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, keeping a spare rescue CD or USB stick can save your bacon when lightning strikes, such as a drive failing.
As Linux is free and open anyone can download and use it, one of the best rescue tools is Knoppix, which provides a full OS with office tools, web browser, graphical tools and rescue tools. So if your main drive should fail, it means you can keep working or try to rescue your files.
Sagar Uttamsingh, Global Supply Planner, Nest
I send iMessages SMS via Mac OS X - Since I spend more time on my Macbook Pro than I do with my iPhone, texting on the computer is convenient and way faster than typing on the phone.
Sarah Giblin, Creator of RiutBag
Make sure your tech is safe when you put it in a rucksack. The idea of protecting tech in your rucksack simply actually led me to create the RiutBag! All the zips against your back gives you peace of mind that your laptop, camera and other valuables are truly safe in any city.
User feedback from the first model evolved the design for fast unload and well padded reload of your laptop on the go.
Linda Irvin, Product Manager UK at Sennheiser
Everyone like their rhythms delivered differently. To suit your taste in bass some headphones now allow you to fully customise how powerful the deep end of sound should be. Beat that.
Alexandru Voica, Imagination Technologies
Will a smartphone camera with more megapixels produce better images? Not always. The megapixel number is relevant but features like Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and advanced HDR (High-Dynamic Range) are also extremely important.
In addition, a larger aperture size (e.g. f1.9) also lets the sensor take in more light and allow the camera to take higher quality photos and videos in low light even with the same number of megapixels. A larger aperture also means a shallower depth of field so you can take better out of focus shots.
Italo Vignoli, Board member, The Document Foundation
Using a standard document format such as ODF, chosen by the UK Government over Microsoft OOXML,means you can not only reduce to close to zero interoperability problems (i.e. documents do not change when opened by a different PC) with the associated costs, but it also eliminates the dependence from a single vendor as the document format is controlled by a neutral and independent organization.
Tim Erlin, Director of Security at Tripwire
Consumers should make sure that they're receiving updates only from their smartphone manufacturer, such as Apple.
You should also be sure to install security updates when they're available. It's always safer to disable features you're not currently using, like WiFi and Bluetooth and also make sure your important data is backed up, so that you can recover if your device is compromised.
Cameron Faulkner, Assistant Editor techradar
The 'Disk Utility' tool built into every Mac can solve most performance issues with your computer. Don't pay for a computer repair until you try it.