A Short History of the Blue Screen of Death

Did You Know? Merv Griffith composed the theme song used for Jeopardy and, since the inception of the show, made over 70 million dollars in royalties up through the time of his death in 2007. Geek Trivia Work On Which Of These Sci-Fi Movies Actually Led To Real World Scientific Papers? 12 Monkeys → Gravity → The Martian → Interstellar → Advertisement For New Movie Disc with 99 Titles – Here's the Best DVD Ripper Nowadays, top-selling movie discs usually contain 99 titles. Common DVD ripping software can't figure out the real main title and usually end up with a short cut and even crash when reading the disc. WinX DVD Ripper can locate the main content in seconds and give you a digital copy in any formats. Download and see how to digitize DVD in 5 minutes Want to Change Your Email Preferences? At some point in the past you subscribed to the How-To Geek newsletter, but if you'd like to change the frequency or unsubscribe, you can do so by clicking the button. Change my Subscription (or unsubscribe) Today's How-To Geek Articles What Is UEFI, and How Is It Different from BIOS? Why Did My Chrome Home Page Change? How to Find a List of Every App You’ve Installed from Google Play How to Stop Instagram from Sending You Constant Notifications A Short History of the Blue Screen of Death HomeKit Isn’t Worth the Trouble: Use a Smarthome Hub Instead The Best Ways to Video Chat from Windows, Mac, iPhone, or Android Firefox Quantum Isn’t Just “Copying” Chrome: It’s Much More Powerful How to Make the $50 Amazon Fire Tablet More Like Stock Android (Without Rooting) Are Cheap Android Phones Worth It? 9 Ways to Give Your Old Scratched DVDs a Second Chance to Live [Sponsored Giveaway] The Best Chromebooks You Can Buy, 2017 Edition Oculus Rift vs. HTC Vive: Which VR Headset Is Right for You? Which Amazon Echo Should I Buy? Echo vs. Dot vs. Show vs. Plus and More Which Roku Should I Buy? Express vs. Stick vs. Stick+ vs. Ultra How to Make the Most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales Today's Review Geek Articles The Game Console Shopping Guide For Parents Geek Comic Today's Tech Term Site License A Site License is a type of software license agreement that authorizes an organization to install and use the software in question for an unlimited number of users (unless specifically limited to a set number of simultaneous users) on a network at a single site/facility. What We're Reading This section contains what we're reading from around the web, along with commentary from our editors. Think of it like your daily digest of the most interesting things online. Lost Bitcoins: 4 Million Bitcoins Gone Forever Study Says Lose a hard drive with a BitCoin and it's gone forever, and about $35 billion worth are thought to be gone forever. [Fortune] High-speed quantum encryption may help secure the future internet Hackers could some day have access to quantum computers, which means we'll all need quantum encryption. [Phys.org] Intel Plans to End Legacy BIOS Support by 2020 It's been a long time since new computers used a BIOS, but as of 2020 new Intel processors will not support them. [Bleeping Computer] What Is UEFI, and How Is It Different from BIOS? The BIOS will soon be dead: Intel has announced plans to completely replace it with UEFI on all their chipsets by 2020. But what is UEFI, and how is it different from the BIOS we’re all familiar with? Read This Article → Why Did My Chrome Home Page Change? The idea of a home page has kind of fallen by the wayside with modern browsers, what with their auto-recall tabs and syncing across devices. But it doesn’t help that Chrome, arguably the most popular browser on full desktop operating systems, isn’t entirely clear on exactly what your home page is. This can be especially frustrating if your home page changes without your knowledge. Read This Article → How to Find a List of Every App You’ve Installed from Google Play If you’ve had a smartphone for any reasonable amount of time, you’ve probably installed and uninstalled more apps than you care to remember. Here’s how to access a list of all the apps you’ve installed on your Android phone(s) over time. Read This Article → How to Stop Instagram from Sending You Constant Notifications Instagram is by far my favorite social network. It's a lovely place where people share all the good stuff that's going on in their lives…and memes. Epic memes. That, however, doesn't mean it doesn't have a few annoyances. Read This Article → A Short History of the Blue Screen of Death It’s iconic, but Microsoft wishes it wasn’t. In the 90s it was as core to the Windows experience as Paint and Solitaire, but these days it’s not seen very often. Read This Article → HomeKit Isn’t Worth the Trouble: Use a Smarthome Hub Instead Apple has had a few duds over the years, but HomeKit is particularly frustrating: After a few years, it’s still a mess disguised as an intuitive smarthome platform. Read This Article → The Best Ways to Video Chat from Windows, Mac, iPhone, or Android If you live far away from the people you care about, video chatting is the best way to feel more like you’re there with them in person. But there are so many video chat apps out there, many of which only work on certain platforms. How do you know which one to use? Read This Article → Firefox Quantum Isn’t Just “Copying” Chrome: It’s Much More Powerful Sure, Firefox has become more like Chrome in a few ways, but it’s still more powerful and customizable than Chrome is—which are integral to Firefox’s DNA. Read This Article → How to Make the $50 Amazon Fire Tablet More Like Stock Android (Without Rooting) Amazon’s $50 Fire Tablet may be one of the best deals in tech—especially when it occasionally goes on sale for $35. It may feel limited, but with a few tweaks—no rooting necessary—you can turn it (and its larger, slightly more expensive brethren) into an almost-stock Android tablet perfect for reading, watching, and even light gaming. Read This Article → Are Cheap Android Phones Worth It? Cheap Android phones are quickly becoming commonplace—for as low as $99, you can get a reliable, initially-impressive handset that you’re free to take to a bunch of different carriers. While these bargain-bin devices are definitely appealing, you have to ask yourself: is it really worth it? Read This Article → 9 Ways to Give Your Old Scratched DVDs a Second Chance to Live [Sponsored Giveaway] Old DVDs still mean a lot to some people. To keep DVD content/data stay safe and sound permanently, DVD owners are seeking for a way to copy old DVD to a new one or create a digital copy of it. Well, look no further, WinX DVD Copy Pro is your preferred program for Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7 and lower to backup old and even scratched DVDs swiftly and losslessly, be they are home-made or commercially copy-protected. See how it renews your old DVDs. Read This Article → The Best Chromebooks You Can Buy, 2017 Edition While once considered a novelty item by many tech enthusiasts, Chromebooks have broken out of the “just a browser” mold and become legitimate laptops. They’re full-featured, lightweight machines that can do everything most users need them to do. Best of all, they’re more secure and often more affordable than the competition. Read This Article → Oculus Rift vs. HTC Vive: Which VR Headset Is Right for You? The home virtual reality market might be a long way from mature, but the two main players on the PC side are firmly established: Facebook-owned Oculus and its Rift headset, and HTC’s Vive platform partnered with Valve. Read This Article → Which Amazon Echo Should I Buy? Echo vs. Dot vs. Show vs. Plus and More The Amazon Echo started off as a simple device, but now there are more than nine different Echo products out in the wild and on Amazon’s virtual shelves. So what’s the difference between them all, and which one should you buy? Read This Article → Which Roku Should I Buy? Express vs. Stick vs. Stick+ vs. Ultra So you’ve decided you want a Roku, but there are so many choices. There are currently five different models (not including full TVs with Roku built-in), and it’s not at all clear what the difference between them is. Which one do you want? Read This Article → How to Make the Most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales It’s that shop-til-you-drop time of year again, and retailers have already spent most of November with teaser sales and ads for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Here’s how to score the best deals and avoid getting ripped off. Read This Article → Advertisement Unblock Content the Easy Way with StrongVPN You're just trying to check out a website and they've locked you out because it's blocked in your country. It's ridiculous, but luckily you can get around the restrictions with StrongVPN.— and unlock any website you want. Of course, they also have a money-back guarantee if it doesn't work for you. Download StrongVPN to Unlock Content Today