Gadgetory

having the right tool for the job is important but how do you know exactly what the right tool is I mean it might be hard to figure out how exactly they make those cakes with a hole in the middle if you've never seen a bundt pan but your computer knows exactly what program it should use to open say a photo or video or a document basically every time that's thanks to today's unsung hero of tech the file extension not to be confused with browser extensions which you can learn about here file extensions are those two three or four letters you see after the file name when you're poking around your hard drive so doc mp3 and Exe for example those are all file extensions so your operating system doesn't just analyze the internal code of a file and and try to figure out what it is that would be an inefficient and in exact process instead whichever program created the file will slap an extension on to the end to tell the OS exactly what kind of data is inside for example if you've ever saved a document in Word you've probably seen that drop-down menu that lets you pick exactly what format you want the file to be saved in after you make your choice where it will attach the appropriate extension so that windows will know to use word if you saved it as a standard word document notepad if it's plain text or adobe reader if it's a PDF when you open the file the OS will check the extension against a list of file type associations you can bring up this list easy enough right here in Windows actually where you can see and modify which program is assigned to which extension now windows will have a lot of default file type associations pre-loaded when the OS is first installed for example it'll automatically know to use the built-in photo viewer app to load up a JPEG instead of trying to open it with like a music player or something but when you install new programs they'll usually ask if they should be the default program for opening certain file extensions especially with popular media applications like VLC which will present you with a long list of extensions that you can pick and choose from and extensions aren't just useful for getting your files to load up quickly they also help you the user see exactly what they are at a glance in the file explorer as Windows will assign little icons to your files solely based on what the extension is are also times when it's useful to change a file extension especially if you've downloaded a file from the internet that you really want to get into it's possible that the creator of the file stuck the wrong extension on it or the file just doesn't have one at all so slapping at dot txt for example on the end of a mysterious file can at least get notepad to open it letting you have a peek inside to see or change an extension just disable this option in Windows 10 unchecking this box will cause file extensions to appear everywhere it's not a bad idea if you download a file you're not sure about in fact a file extension trickery has led to some bad malware epidemics notably the love-letter virus of the early 2000s the bad guy sent out an email with an attachment that appeared to have a dot txt extension fooling the user into thinking it was just a harmless plain text file but showing the extension in Windows Explorer revealed it was actually a VBS file in other words a script that contained malicious code so be sure to pay attention to file extensions whenever you download anything and be especially wary if it's an unidentified exe or VBS as they have code that will run when you open them so be sure you know where they're coming from so tip of the hat to file extensions they can warn us about dodgy files and help our pcs run more quickly and because of that they are today's unsung hero of tech do you have an extra five minutes per day then use brilliance daily problems to help you train your brain each problem provides you with the context and framework that you need to tackle it so that you learn the concepts by applying them if you like the daily problem then there's more like it in the quiz on the left so you can explore the concept in great detail and develop your framework if you're confused and need more guidance then join the community in discussing these problems these thought-provoking challenges will lead you from curiosity to mastery one day at a time the first 200 people to go to the link will get 20% off an annual premium subscription so be sure to check it out so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you can hit that button but if you liked it like the video get subscribed and be sure to hit up the comment section for with suggestions for other videos that you want to see in the future