How to activate Office with product key

1. If you have installed Office

If you have successfully installed the Microsoft Office suite on your PC and you have purchased an Office product key, you can follow the guide below to activate your Office suite.

  • Open one of the Office apps like Word, Excel, etc. on your PC
  • In the pop-up Welcome window, click the Sign in button to enter your Microsoft account credentials to sign in to Office
  • Click File -> Account
  • Click Activate Product
  • Click Use a different account option
  • Click I have a product key link
  • Then you can enter your product key to activate your Microsoft Office product. After the activation, you can see a “Product Activated” message along with the Office edition on the Account page.

2. If you haven’t installed Office

If you purchase Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Office coming with a product key, you can follow the instructions below to activate Office and install Office products on your Windows 11/10 computer. For Microsoft 365 and Office 2021/2019/2016/2013, you can go to setup.office.com, click the Sign in button to sign in with your Microsoft account.

If you don’t have one, you can click Create a new account button to create a Microsoft account. Enter your product key in the pop-up window. Then you can download and install your Office product.

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iOS 17 new features

Set multiple timers

Yes, for the first time ever, you can set multiple timers to run at the same time on an iPhone. Just start a timer in the Clock app as before, and then tap the + sign at the top right to add a new one. You can label each timer so that you don’t get confused as to what they’re counting down to, just as you can with various alarms.

StandBy Mode transforms your iPhone

When you flip your phone horizontally while it’s charging, it enters the new StandBy Mode, which turns your iPhone into a clock, a calendar, a digital photo frame, or an information center with widget smart stacks. StandBy Mode includes several clock faces, and the display cleverly shifts to red at night to be less intrusive. iPhones now also associate your preferred StandBy Mode settings with specific MagSafe docks, so you can have a clock when you put your iPhone on a MagSafe charger in the bedroom, for example, and a digital photo frame in the den.

We think StandBy Mode is a clever way for your idle iPhone to be useful, but it’s easier to use when the phone is mounted on a MagSafe dock, and it works only if you have an iPhone with an always-on display (namely, the iPhone 14 Pro, 14 Pro Max, 15 Pro, or 15 Pro Max). We also noticed that notifications are quite large in StandBy Mode, so you’ll probably want to switch off notification previews if you don’t want anyone else in the room reading them.

Go wild with stickers

In one of several improvements to the Messages app, iOS 17 now gives you quick access to all your stickers—including those from third-party apps. You can create new stickers from your own photos by tapping and holding on a person (or multiple people, or pets) in a photo and send them in texts as is or with added interactive effects for a bit of pizzazz. Stickers are also available outside of Messages, giving you more opportunities to add your personal flair. While using the iOS 17 beta, we noticed that stickers weren’t always appropriately sized in third-party apps, and the interactive elements of the custom sticker effects didn’t function, but we’ll test this feature more fully when the official version of iOS 17 rolls out.

Add video effects with gestures

iOS now includes eight effects, including rain, confetti, and hearts, as reactions in video calls. You can trigger them from a menu or via hand gestures in front of the iPhone’s front-facing camera; for example, if you hold up a double peace sign, confetti will rain down behind your face (much to the delight of the person on the other end of the line). These effects are available in FaceTime and third-party apps such as Zoom, but you need an iPhone 12 or newer to take advantage of the gesture controls.

The gestures work shockingly well, and the effects are delightful. Although our iPhone had no problem detecting our gestures, we did have to position ourselves so that both hands were visible on screen.

Voicemails get visual

Incoming voicemails are now transcribed in real time and appear as text on your iPhone lock screen, giving you the chance to decide whether to pick up a call. We weren’t able to test this feature in the iOS 17 beta, but we will soon.

If you FaceTime someone who doesn’t pick up, you can leave them a video message. FaceTime gives you a quick countdown to start recording and lets you do it over if you flub it. We were surprised to find that video reaction gestures work on video voicemails, as well.

Group chats get better in Messages

It’s easy to lose the thread in large and long-running group chats. Apple tackles that problem with inline replies for Messages, which allow you to reply to a specific message with a swipe. Improved search now allows for multiple filters, helping you find what you need among all the responses. Audio messages sent in Messages also come with transcriptions, making that feature more accessible and helpful when you can’t listen to a voice message.

NameDrop your contact info

You can now bring your iPhone close to another iPhone to instantly share your contact details with a new friend. You can also create a personalized contact poster to share, which is a little more visual than just your name and phone number. In our experience with the beta, sharing contact information—including the new contact posters—was seamless. After you place two iPhones together, the option to share your contact poster immediately pops up. (If you ever used the Bump app back in the day, you’ll find NameDrop to be a similar experience).

Safari gets more private
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How to enter BIOS on a Mac

As we mentioned earlier, users can’t enter UEFI on Mac. On PowerPC Macs, you used to be able to press a key combination at startup to enter Open Firmware and view a diagram of connected devices, RAM configurations, and CPU information. You can’t do that on Macs, however. The closest thing you can do is boot in single-user mode and use the command-line interface to interrogate your Mac using Unix commands. However, it is only available for Intel-based Macs, meaning that the following steps will not work for Macs with Apple silicon.

  1. Shut down your Mac.
  2. Press the power button and hold down Command and Option keys and the letters O and F as your Mac starts up.
  3. Release the keys when you see a black screen with white text on it.

Instead of Macintosh BIOS, there is UEFI — unified extensible firmware interface — that carries out the same functions as those performed by the BIOS on older Windows PCs. These include initializing the hardware and loading the operating system. Sadly, you can’t boot into UEFI mode to take control of the process using a command line. However, a single-user mode allows you to do something similar for Intel-based Macs.

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How to update your apple watch

First, make sure that your Apple Watch works with the latest software. watchOS 9 is compatible with these Apple Watch models:

  • Apple Watch Series 4 and later
  • Apple Watch SE (1st generation) and later
  • Apple Watch Ultra

Updating to watchOS 9 also requires one of these iPhone models:

  • iPhone 8 or later with iOS 16
  • iPhone SE (2nd generation) or later with iOS 16

If your Apple Watch isn’t compatible with the latest version of watchOS, Software Update will show you the newest version that your watch can use. If your Apple Watch has watchOS 6 or later, you can install updates without your iPhone:

  1. Make sure that your watch is conected to Wi-fi
  2. On your watch, open the Settings app
  3. Tap General > Software Update
  4. Tap Install if a software update is available, then follow the onscreen instructions.
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How to change your MAC Address in Windows 10

MAC addresses are useful for identifying devices on a network. For home users, you might use MAC filtering to restrict acces to you Wi-Fi network.  A MAC address works better for these administrative tasks because, unlike IP addresses, the MAC address doesn’t change.

MAC spoofing can be used maliciously to circumvent network controls, but it’s really only effective for blacklists—that is, if someone specifically blocked your device from the network. For whitelists, you’d have to know the MAC address of a specific device you’re trying to spoof.

Changing your MAC address has legitimate uses as well. You can use it to test your own MAC filtering settings. Or you can use it to assign specific rules to a set of devices within a certain MAC address range.

  • Press Windows key + X on your keyboard, then click Device Manager. Expand Network adapters, right-click your Ethernet or Wireless adapter, then click Properties.

  • Select the Advanced tab. Within the Property box, scroll down, select Locally Administered Address, and select the Value radio box; there, you will see your adapters MAC address. Click in the Value box, clear its contents, and enter a new address to edit the address. A Mac address consists of six pairs of hexadecimal digits. Enter a new set without the hyphens, click OK, then restart your computer.

  • To confirm the change, open Start, type: CMD, right-click CMD, then click Run as administrator. At the command prompt, type: ipconfig/all, then hit Enter to check the physical address.
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Can’t connect to this Network Windows 10 Error

When a system connects to a network it stores the credentials, to make it easier for future logins. But when changes are made in the settings by the provider then the system might not be able to connect to the device. In that case, you must forget the network and try to connect again to the network as it can fix this network error.

  • Open Settings and click on “Network & Internet” as shown in the image below.

  • Click on “Wi-Fi” and then click on “Manage known networks” as shown below.

  • Now, click on the network provider and then click on “Forget”.

Now you must look for the network and the available connections and try to login with the credentials again to connect to the network.

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How to disable USB Storage by Using the Group Policy Editor

To disable the USB storage by using the Group Policy Editor, open “Run.” Once it’s open, type gpedit.msc. On the left pane click on “Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Removable Storage Access.”

When you click on “Removable Storage Access,” new options will appear in the right pane. Look for and click on the options that say “Removable Disks: Deny execute access,” “Removable Disks: Deny read access,” and “Removable Disks: Deny write access.”

Click on each one of them to configure them. After clicking on one, a window with the name of the option should appear. To the left, there will be three options: Not Configured, Enabled, and Disabled.

Click on “Enabled” to disable it. If you ever change your mind and want to enable them again, choose the “Not Configured” or “Disabled” option.

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How to connect your Xbox controller to your PC via Wireless

f Xbox Wireless is your preferred connection method, follow these steps:

  1. Hold down Xbox on your controller for three seconds until the Xbox button starts flashing.
  2. Press and hold the Pair button on your controller. When the Xbox button starts flashing more quickly, that means the controller is searching for your PC.
  3. Select Start on your computer.
  4. Select Settings > Bluetooth & devices.
  5. Select Add device.
  6. Find your controller by selecting Everything else.
  7. From here, choose either Xbox Wireless Controller or Xbox Elite Wireless Controller. When your controller is connected to your PC, the Xbox button will stay lit.
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How to Import Photos from iPhone to Windows 10

  • Connect your iPhone to the computer

To start with, just connect your iPhone to the system using a working lightning cable. If you are connecting it for the first time, then you need to tap on the “Trust” button once you get a prompt on your device. Also, allow the connected PC to access photos and videos on your iPhone.

  • Transfer photos from iPhone to Windows

Open the iPhone storage and browse to its Internal Storage > DCIM folder to explore the available photos and videos. You can now right-click, copy this content, and paste it on your Windows storage.

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How to map a Network Drive in Windows

Map a network drive to get to it from File Explorer in Windows without having to look for it or type its network address each time.

  • Open File Explorer from the taskbar or the Start  menu, or press the Windows logo key  + E.
  • Select This PC from the left pane. Then, on the Computer tab, select Map network drive.

  • In the Drive list, select a drive letter
  • In the Folder box, type the path of the folder or computer, or select Browse to find the folder or computer. To connect every time you sign in to your PC, select Reconnect at sign-in.
  • Select Finish.

  • Your mapped drive is now available under This PC.
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