What is Direct X 12 and Why is it Important?

Did You Know? The mechanism in mechanical watches and clocks that transfers energy to the timekeeping element and allows for the counting of oscillations is known as the “escapement”; this key invention, developed in the 13th century, is what made all-mechanical clocks even possible. Geek Trivia Bathing Machines Were An Integral Part Of What Victorian-Era Activity? Ocean Swimming → Weekly Baths → Spa Cleanses → Indoor Pools → Advertisement Download 20 Travel Hacking Strategies to Help You Travel the World and Spend Less We can prove to you that traveling the world doesn't cost a lot of money. In fact, you'd be surprised by how cheap traveling can be. Download this quick guide to travel hacking and get ready to pack your bags. Click here to download Thoughts from the Geek A Friend of How-To Geek Needs Your Help Back in 2007 when I was starting How-To Geek, there was a great tech news site called CyberNet News run by a husband and wife team, Ryan and Ashley. They did a great job of putting together all the most important tech news for the day, especially focused on new downloads and tech information for geeks. Even though they were really busy with their own site, Ryan and I became friends, and he gave me tons of advice about how to run a web site that was really helpful in turning How-To Geek into what it is today. The world of tech news changed and they eventually had to switch gears and now they run a great cooking website called CenterCutCook (we recently linked to their amazing S’Mores cones recipe). These are really good people. And then disaster struck… In 2014, Ryan was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, which is hard enough for anybody, but they also learned around the same time that they had a kid on the way. After their son was born, they discovered that the baby was in kidney failure, and eventually was diagnosed with a rare disease called Primary Hyperoxaluria. Today, Ryan is fighting colon cancer, and baby Miles needs both a kidney and a liver. They are dealing with chemo for Ryan, dialysis for Miles, and all while trying to keep their web site running so they can pay the bills. But does that stop them? Nope. They are still awesome, giving people. Ryan spent a lot of time a few months ago helping me out with some advanced server configuration to make sure How-To Geek is running as optimally as possible, and he’s always taking time to give me tips. Their friends and family set up a donation page for their medical expenses, and I’d like to personally ask our great readers to donate to them. They are really good people, and they don’t deserve what is going on. If every one of our daily readers donates at least a few dollars, we can get them to their fundraising goal in a few hours. Donate to Ryan and Ashley (and baby Miles) Geek Comic Today's Tech Term EIM (2) EIM (short for Enterprise Information Management) refers to the processes, disciplines, and strategies used by an enterprise to manage and make the best, most efficient use of its data. EIM focuses on information creation, capture, distribution, and consumption while keeping the data easily accessible, secure, accurate, and meaningful. What We're Reading from Around the Web Viacom is Missing TV Viewers, Hit Shows, and Its Leader: Why Nobody Wants Their MTV [Bloomberg] Don't Call Kids 'Smart': The Growing Evidence for Praising Actions Not Ability [The Atlantic] How To Kill The Password: Don't Ask For One [ReadWrite] Elon Musk Hopes These Researchers Can Save Us from Superintelligent AI [Motherboard] Op-ed: Safari is the new Internet Explorer [ArsTechnica] Behind the Surge in Cross-Device Ad Targeting: How Ads Follow You From Phone to Desktop [MIT Technology Review] How to Create a New Item in Outlook Directly from the Clipboard You're working on a document and discover that you need to send part of it in an email to a colleague. Rather than manually creating a new email in Outlook before you can paste the text, you can simply paste it while in Outlook. Read This Article → Why You Shouldn't Automatically Log Into Your Windows PC Automatically logging into your Windows PC opens a security hole. When you enable automatic logins, your Windows account password is stored on your PC where any program with administrator access can access it. Read This Article → What is the Difference Between Pinging With and Without http://? If you are experimenting with and learning about pinging a website, you may be surprised by the results based on “what” you ping. Today’s SuperUser Q&A post helps clear things up for a confused and frustrated reader. Read This Article → What is Direct X 12 and Why is it Important? When Microsoft began detailing new features of its upcoming Windows 10 operating system, one of those features it talked about is DirectX 12. Gamers will immediately know what this is but they may not perhaps realize just how important an update it will be. Read This Article → How to Charge Your Smartphone Without Access to Electricity By this point, the act of plugging your phone in for a charge at night is about as mundane as brushing your teeth or showering… but what would you do if nothing came out the other side of the outlet? Read This Article → How to View Multiple Documents at Once in Word If you're working on multiple Word documents, it may be helpful to view some or all of them at once. There are a couple of different ways you can view multiple documents and even a way to view different parts of the same document at the same time. Read This Article → How to Print Photos From Your iPhone Digital photos are great, but sometimes you just want a printed photo you can hang somewhere or just hold in your hand. Print photos straight from your iPhone’s camera roll, whether you have your own photo printer or not. Read This Article → Advertisement Download The Eleven Step Action Plan for Achieving Your Goals This quick action plan, brought to you by the American Management Association, is a step-by-step guide for achieving your goals. Use it as a tool to help you achieve more than you thought possible! Click here to download