Many business users are becoming more and more concerned about data privacy. If you’re a Windows 10 user and you’re concerned about how the operating system collects your data, follow these tips to ensure your data’s protection.

Slip off the grid

Thanks to location tracking, nearby restaurants and future weather predictions are at your fingertips. While some might not mind this feature, there are others who wish to enjoy some privacy from their smartphones every once in a while.

To turn it off, launch the Settings app, tap Privacy, and disable the Location tab. If you wish to share your location with certain apps, scroll down and activate the ‘Choose apps that can use your location’ tab and choose your desired apps.

Say goodbye to ad tracking

Every time you surf the net, you leave a trail of breadcrumbs that lead directly to your online profile. This problem is easily solved by deactivating ad tracking. Windows 10, however, goes a tad further by using an advertising ID, which gathers information based on web browsing usage and whenever you use Windows 10 apps.

To take care of that, launch the Settings app, go to General, look for “Change privacy options,” then move the slider from on to off. If you want to make sure you have no virtual stalkers, head to choice.microsoft.com/en-us/opt-out and disable the “Personalized ads whenever I use my Microsoft account” tab.

Disable Wi-Fi Sense

This feature is designed to let you easily share Wi-Fi connections with specific users, but hackers can misuse it to log on to your network without your permission. To disable it, launch the Setting app, go to Network & Internet > Wi-Fi > and click on Wi-Fi Sense. From there, deactivate two bars: “Connect to suggested open hotspots” and “Connect to networks shared my contacts”.

Cortana, why so clingy?

Albeit helpful, the digital assistant Cortana requires access to your personal information. But you can stop her from collecting data by logging in to your Microsoft account and clearing all the information Cortana and other Microsoft services (ex. Bing maps) have gathered.

You can also clear the information in your interests section or head over to the “interest manager” tab to edit the interests you want Cortana to track.

More privacy options

All of these tips are easy to follow and will take only five to ten minutes to implement, but if you like to make very detailed adjustments to your system's privacy setup, launch the Settings app and go to Privacy.

We hope you find these five privacy protection tips helpful. If you need more help protecting your information or securing your network, give us a call.

The post Windows 10: Tips to protect your privacy appeared first on Complete Technology Resources, Inc..

How would you search the internet for an item you didn’t know the name of? Throwing together a few descriptive words probably isn’t enough to find what you’re looking for, but what if you could search using just an image? Microsoft’s Bing lets you do exactly that and it’s receiving some big upgrades.

How does visual search work?

Bing has indexed billions of images posted on the internet and most of them have text descriptions of some sort. This has made it possible for Microsoft to create programs that look for similarities in image contents and labels to create computer-generated definitions of everyday objects. So if you were to take a photo of the White House and upload it to Bing, the search engine could tell you what it is without any human input.

Although it may seem like little more than a novelty, Visual Search makes it much easier for eCommerce shoppers to find niche products. Bing can help people identify hard-to-name items and suggest stores that sell them, such as “slip joint pliers” at a local hardware shop or “gaucho pants” at an online clothing retailer.

What’s new?

In June, Microsoft announced that Visual Search is now available within Bing’s iOS and Android apps, as well as Android’s Microsoft Launcher. Just open the app, tap the camera button and take a photo from your phone or choose an image from the gallery. If you’d like to narrow your search, tap the magnifying glass button and crop your image to highlight specific objects within the photo.

In the near future, Visual Search will be added to Microsoft’s Edge browser and Bing.com. It’s a useful feature for finding what you need and helping customers do the same. For insight and support related to any of Microsoft’s products, give our experts a call today.

The post Improvements coming to Visual Search in Bing appeared first on Complete Technology Resources, Inc..

With Windows taking up 36.3% of the total market share of operating systems worldwide, it’s no wonder every major update of Windows is highly anticipated. After the release of Windows 10 Redstone 4, enthusiasts now eagerly await Windows 10 Redstone 5. We’ve compiled the most significant updates of the system.

1. Windows Sets

Sets takes the concept of tabs in your browsers and applies it to the whole Windows operating system (OS). It allows users to open a window with tabs for apps, files, web pages, programs, basically anything and everything.

For example: You’re working on a Word document and need to go online for research. Sets will open the web page in a tab beside your Word file. Then when you create a Powerpoint presentation for your report, it appears in a third tab. Everything connected to your Word document is neatly organized in a Set. So the next time you open your Word file, a prompt will remind you of the online article, PowerPoint presentation, and all other tabs related to your document. Microsoft explained it as “content that belongs together should stay together.”

2. Cloud Clipboard

Cloud Clipboard is shared across all your Windows 10 devices, so you can copy-paste between different devices. Cloud Clipboard also logs the things you copy, so you can refer back to them later.

3. Snipping Tool + Screen Sketch app

The current Snipping Tool in Windows is a bit cumbersome and inconvenient for quick screenshots. Now you can press ALT + Shift + S to open the Snipping Tool from any screen. There are also new types of snips you can make:

• Rectangular snip -- Form a rectangle (or square) around an object.
• Window snip -- Select a window or dialogue box that you want to snip.
• Free-form snip -- Draw a freeform shape around an object.
• Full-screen snip -- Take a snip of the whole screen.

Snipping Tool also allows you to launch the Screen Sketch app with one click, so you can immediately edit your image.

4. Dark theme for File Explorer

Microsoft finally added a dark theme to its File Explorer, so you won't be blinded when you browse in the middle of the night.

5. Improved search experience

Searching for files and apps from the Windows taskbar will have a wider display window to show more content and information. It also allows you to open related documents and perform related actions.

6. Improved Your Phone app

This app makes it a lot easier for iOS and Android smartphones to interact with your PC. You can send and receive SMS; and drag and drop files, photos, and more from phone to PC and vice versa.

These are just some of the reasons why there’s much ado about the upcoming release of Windows 10 Redstone 5. Get ready for more updates and new features when it launches this September or October. If you need help with anything Windows-related before then, we're always available. Give us a call today!

The post What’s new in Windows 10 Redstone 5 appeared first on Complete Technology Resources, Inc..