Awesome Back-to-School Tech Products for College Students

You can never be too early when it comes to preparing for back to school, especially if you're on a tight budget. Nowadays, students particularly in college, need to be armed with various tech products, which is why a laptop alone is not enough. These tech products can range from external monitors to help make writing easier to portable chargers to help their devices all powered up throughout the day and night.

So if you're currently on the lookout for the perfect tech you'll find most useful for your study needs, check out this short list for some ideas.

Logitech M510 Wireless Mouse	Because of the M510's comfortable grip and customizable side buttons, it is a favorite sub-$20 mouse. The sleek mouse has a dedicated slot for its receiver and it can be turned on/off to preserve its two AA batteries. Power users can also use Logitech's SetPoint software to further customize the feel of the M510. Price: starts at $19.97 in Amazon
Asus ZenBook UX330UA	College students consider the Asus ZenBook UX330UA as their top laptop choice. This 2.7-pound laptop gives a solid performance in a lightweight design at an affordable price. It's battery can last up to 10 hours, which means it'll take you from your afternoon class to your evening Netflix binge without the need for a recharge. This configuration packs a 13.3-inch, 1080p LCD, 2.5GHz Core i5-7200U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Price: starts at $699 in Amazon
Canon TS6020 Wireless AIO Printer	For those times you can't print from your college campus, the Canon TS6020 All-in-One Inkjet Printer offers more than enough machine for your needs. This compact printer can copy, scan, print business cards and even churn out beautiful photos on glossy paper. It uses a five-ink system to deliver the most vivid prints possible, and it even offers fast two-sided printing. Price: starts at $134.97 in Amazon
Jackery Titan 20,100 mAh Charger	An external battery charger is a necessity for every student, and no gadget can save you from the red bar of death like the 20,100 mAh Jackery Titan. It features dual 5V/3.4A fast-charging ports that can identify your device and charge it at its highest speed. Its aluminum exterior helps it blend in with your other gadgets. And it also comes with a micro USB cable. Price: starts at $33.99 in Amazon
Amazon Fire HD 8 Tablet	Budget tablets are a dime a dozen these days, but the 2017 Amazon Fire HD 8 is in a league of its own. The no-frills tablet features a quad-core 1.3GHz processor, 1.5GB of RAM and an impressive 11-hour battery. It also features Amazon's digital assistant, Alexa, so you can play your favorite music, receive news update, or control other smart-home gadgets straight from your tablet. Price: starts at $79.99 in Amazon
Satechi Type-C USB 3 Combo Hub	Many of today's ultra-slim laptops can be stingy when it comes to ports. That's where the Satechi Type-C USB 3-in-1 Combo Hub comes in handy. It connects to a single USB Type-C port and expands it with three USB Type-A 3.1 ports, an SD card slot, and a microSD card slot. This stylish hub comes in Gunmetal, Gold or Silver. Price: starts at $34.99 in Amazon
Toshiba Canvio Connect II 1TB Hard Drive	Whether you need more storage space for media files or you want to share large projects with your classmates, you'll need a USB hard drive. This Mac- and PC- friendly drive combines good looks with great performance. At 0.36 pounds, it's also one of the lighter drives out there. It's available in red, blue, or black, and features rubber feet that help elevate and secure the drive on whatever surface it is placed. Price: starts at $59.99 in Amazon

Practical Ways on How to Make Your Virtual Machine Faster

What's great about running a virtual machine is that you can try out a new operating system or test an application without affecting the host OS. However, there are times wherein the program you are using to do so may not be running the virtual machine up to its optimum level.

There are few reasons underlying the decrease in speed of your virtual machine -- it could be due to your physical system's hardware capabilities or it may be the program running your virtual machine that is sluggish. Read more to learn some tips on how to go about speeding up your virtual machine.

Restart Your PC

Before you do anything else, it's best to give your PC a restart. This option is often overlooked but is one very effective step to iron out the wrinkles your PC may be having.

Keep Your Virtualization Software Up to Date

These updates over time will get rid of the bugs and handle your physical machine's RAM and processing power far better than before.

Adjust Dedicated RAM and Add Software Acceleration

If too much memory is handed over, your physical PC may not have sufficient RAM remaining in order to complete its regular tasks. Similarly, if too little is allotted to your virtual machine, it may have some difficulties doing as much as loading a web browser. There is a healthy medium, and what this is will vary based on your physical PC's specifications. Take note that you need to provide your virtual machine with 1GB of RAM per 4 GB of RAM on your physical PC. This may not be the ultimate solution, but it is a wise thing to consider if you are new to configuring a virtual machine.

In addition to adding more memory, you can also add more CPUs and or enable hardware virtualization and/or acceleration through your virtual machine's hosting software.

Defragment Your Host's Hard Drive (for Windows Only)

You need to allot some time to defragment your computer's disk -- it may just be a simple procedure but it can do wonders. For those unaware, defragging a hard drive is simply the act of placing blocks of data closer together so that data can be read by the machine more quickly. You will notice load times significantly decrease, not only across your virtual machine, but on your physical PC as well.

Reduce the Disk Size of Your Virtual Machine

If your virtual machine is hogging a very large amount of storage, processes can take a lot of time to complete. For more information, click here.

Disable Windows Defender on Virtual Machine (for Windows Only)

As long as you aren't using your virtual PC permanently or to test sketchy or otherwise suspicious programs, you may wish to disable preinstalled antivirus. Antivirus will use extra CPU and RAM resources that, while necessary on a PC, are not so crucial on a virtual machine. Again, choosing to disable antivirus will vary based on the user's preference.

Disable Background Tasks on Your Virtual PC

Your virtual machine will noticeably run faster and smoother if the running processes in its background are at minimal, since these are eating up RAM and the hard drive's reading and writing. Try closing any program that is not urgently needed to complete the task at hand.

Amazing Gaming Laptops Below $1,000

We all know that gaming laptops are ridiculously expensive and can cause a big hole in our pockets. You may find some fancier models costing around $3,000. Here you will find affordable gaming laptops that offer impressive graphics that handle the latest games, smooth frame rates, and excellent audio.

And the best part of that is you can get all those cool features without worrying about lag and heating problems. So if you're currently on the lookout for a competitive yet affordable gaming laptop, then you better check out this list.

Acer Aspire VX5-591G	This laptop has everything you need to look for in a gaming laptop. It has fast memory, sharp graphics, and a quality design. Wrapped in an aggressive design of red lines, large fan exhausts and a sturdy silver plastic hinge, you'll know that it's a machine that's built for gaming. The speakers have a decent sound, and the 1080 HD screen is high quality providing clear images with accurate color. It has 16 GB DDR4 RAM from the latest generation running at 2133 Mhz, as well as the recently released (7th gen) Intel Core i7-7700 HQ processor. It also has a 256 GB solid state drive for that super fast boot and load. You may need to get an external storage for this because there's no HDD, which means all the included memory is the 256 GB from the SSD. The Acer delivers what is most important in a gamin laptop -- the graphics card. Backed by the Nvidia GTX 1050Ti, the computer can run all the latest games with solid fps on medium-high settings. Price: $999.99 from Amazon
Lenovo Y700 14-inch	Carbon fiber, powerful audio, and an Intel Core i7 processor make the 14-inch Lenovo Y700 a formidable multimedia/gaming laptop. Its underperformance compared to its Nvidia-powered competitors, its AMD graphics is compensated with the loud JBL speakers, which punch well above their weight class. If you're looking for something portable and affordable, the Y700 is worth a look. Price: starts at $599 from Lenovo
Dell Inspiron i5577	The Dell Inspiron i5577 offers a deal you just cannot resist -- included SSD, a potent graphics card, powerful processor and a saving of $200. This laptop is lightweight for a gaming laptop but with a modest and professional look. It has a sturdy matte black plastic housing, diamond curved edges, and red details. The palm rest has a slide-resistant coating that feels great. The screen provides crisp, vibrant graphics. The speakers sound good although it's not this laptop's strongest point. With a RAM of 8 GB, you don't to worry about a thing if you're just looking for a gaming laptop; 8 GB of RAM is sufficient enough for gaming. The i5577 comes with a 256 GB SSD, which will make booting up, transferring, adding or loading files fast. If you can afford having a smaller hard drive and less RAM, you will love the Dell Inspiron i5577. Price: $749.99 from Amazon
Acer V17 Vn7-792G	A big round of applause to Acer for doing a great job with their 17-inch Nitro Black Edition. It gets the same looks and slender body as the smaller versions, but performs smoother under load, runs cooler and can be paired with excellent screen options. Most models are also competitively priced, and even the top-tier models offer a lot for the money, but they are just not for everyone. Looks aside, this laptop is also well built. Lifting the lid reveals the 17.3-inch, 1080p display with its significant bezel, an aluminum deck, the Tobii eye-tracking IR camera, and a red, backlit keyboard. (The latter is the only giveaway that it's a gaming notebook, but you can turn it off.) There’s little flex in the screen and the keyboard frame, and in fact this 17-inch model actually feels a bit sturdier built than the 15-inch variant. That’s good. The hinges are smartly designed as well and allow users to easily lift the screen with a single hand, but also keep the screen firmly in place when needed. On to more practical aspects, the laptop’s interior is roomy, with a large palm-rest, as expected from a 17-inch laptop. The screen is great for watching videos, reading text , browsing or performing tasks that require a color accurate panel and it’s also bright and with decent blacks. Hardware wise, the Nvidia 960M graphics chip with 4 GB of video memory is paired with a quad-core Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, 16 GB of DDR4 RAM (up to 32 GB of RAM supported in the two available slots) and dual storage, with a 2.5-inch hard drive and an M.2 SATA SSD. Overall, the Acer Aspire V17 Nitro VN7-792G checks many of the right boxes. It’s built well and looks really good, sleeker than most of its rivals. It also gets a splendid display, it offers the performance expected from such a device and runs fairly cool, even under load. Price: starts from $999
Asus K501UW	Is having a larger solid state drive one of your requirements for a gaming laptop? Do you prefer a solid but not too flashy design? Do you also want it to have a power-packed hardware? Then, the ASUS K501UW can answer all of these questions with a "Yes." This laptop has a rather discrete design. With an elegant yet sturdy gray metal cover, you'd be surprised what's hidden underneath. Inside, you find just like most of the laptops in the list the Nvidia Gtx 960m graphics card.  The CPU is the Intel Core i7-6500U, about equally powerful as the top rated processor, the i7-6700HQ. The 8GB RAM is of the modern type DDR4. One of the weaker parts of the laptop is the screen. It’s a decent display, but there are far better screens on other laptops in this price range. The main thing that makes this laptop stand out is the 512GB SSD. With this much memory, you can store a lot of files and program and always have quick access to them with the help of the solid state drive. Unfortunately, there is no included HDD so for some people that like to install a lot of programs and store a lot of files, the rather small amount of memory could be an issue. Price: $819 from Amazon

Block Those Annoying Spam Calls With These 5 Android Apps

Everywhere you can find spam -- it can be in your inbox, mailbox, and now it can also be on your Android phone. Spam comprises of information or products that don't interest you and just use up space on your device. Even so, you still have to deal with these things. You have the choice for not answering calls from unknown callers, but then there's also the risk of missing an important phone call.

It's actually not difficult to get rid of these spam calls/SMS on your Android device provided that you use the right app to do the job. These apps will make those annoying calls go away and will finally let you have peace of mind.

Mr. Number (Block Calls & Spam)

Mr. Number is one of Android's most popular spam blockers. You don't need to set anything up when you launch the app for the first time in order to get rid of those spam calls. This app already has a list of reported spam numbers that other users have reported.

If you get a spam call from a number that hasn't been reported, you can block that number by going to Settings > Call Blocking > Check the suspected spam option. To report the spam call, just tap on the Report Spam option on the bottom-right when you select the number.

If the spam call you get is on the app's spam list, you'll get a notice and can even see what other users have said about that number. There will also be options to block or report that number so you never have to deal with it again.

TrueCaller

The main purpose of the TrueCaller app is to identify all the calls that you receive on your phone. Even though the app works similarly as a Caller ID, it also has a feature that will prevent you from having to deal with spam calls.

The app will identify telemarketers and spam calls since it has a large telemarketer database. You only need to make sure that the feature is on when you first install the app, and it will automatically block any call that will be identified as spam.

If there is a number that the app doesn't identify as spam but you consider it as such, you can block it by going to Settings > Block > View My Block List and tapping on the blue circle on the bottom-right.

Call Blocker (Blacklist App)

Not only will Call Blocker block unwanted spam calls, it can also filter SMS as well. Spam can reach your phone as SMS, but it won't anymore with this app. (Spam SMS will still reach your phone, but it will be filtered out before you have a chance to look at it.) You can choose from options such as text SMS filter, do not disturb mode, personal blacklist, block call log, community blacklist, etc.

When the app blocks a call, you won't get a notification or any type of notice. Say goodbye to telemarketers, robocalls and any phone number based on their area code or number.

If a number that has violated the FRC/FCC Do Not Call list tries to call you, rest assured that they won’t get through. It’s also possible to sync online and back up locally any personal lists you have in the cloud for safekeeping.

Call Blocker Free Blacklist

Call Blocker Free will help you eliminate those annoying spam calls. A feature that makes this app stand out from the rest is that it has an option to block those one-ring phone scams. You don't need to manually activate this feature since it's already enabled by default.

You also have the option to choose how you would like these calls to be blocked by choosing hang up, hang up and send a text message, or mute without hanging up. You also have an option to get notifications for all blocked calls and messages your phone will receive.

Hiya

Hiya is a spam-blocking app that has the ability to identify about a million spam numbers. As soon as a call comes in, the app compares the number with its database and lets you know if it's spam or not.

Aside for keeping spam out of your phone, it can also detect viruses and malware in your text messages. The Hiya app also has a reverse phone lookup feature that can help you fill in some missing information on certain contacts on your phone.

To add a certain number to your block list, go to Settings > Call Protection > Numbers on my block list. Tap the red button at the bottom-right corner and you're done.