Gadget Hacks How-Tos — Page 143 of 336

How To: Revamp the “Complete Action Using” Dialog for a Better Way to Open Files on Android

One of Android's strengths when compared to other mobile operating systems is its ability to set third-party apps as the default handler of certain file types. Instead of being stuck with pre-installed system apps when it comes to opening files and links, you're free to choose a better-fitting alternative.

How To: Rotate Your Favorite Wallpapers on Set Schedule for Any Android Device

When it comes to wallpapers, I'm no monogamist. I have a lot of wallpapers that I'm committed to, but they don't always get their fair share of time with me—and that's where the problem lies. I'm too lazy to go out of my way to make sure they all feel loved. I'd rather them to come to me when it's their turn, and thanks to Wallpaper Changer, they can do just that.

Hangover Prevention: Use Your Android Phone to Find Headache-Free Drinking Patterns

Trying to remember if it's "beer before liquor or liquor before beer" can be too much of a hassle, especially if you've already have had a few too many. While it would be great if one rhyme could determine the amount of pain you will feel the next morning, we must accept that we all react differently to alcohol and that's that.

How To: Boost Your HTC One's Audio Quality with SnapDragon Audio+

The HTC One has proven to be the industry standard in mobile audio performance. With BoomSound and Harman/Kardon technology backing its front-facing speakers, there is no doubt that every other flagship out there pales in comparison. Despite this, HTC didn't include a decent equalizer on the One. The M7 had Beats but the M8 doesn't have anything.

How To: Launch Apps Straight from the Status Bar on Your Nexus 5

Even with display sizes increasing by the year, smartphone screen real estate is still at a premium. We want the content we're viewing to take center stage, and this leaves little room for functionality beyond the focused app.

How To: Remotely View & Send Text Messages from Your Android Phone Using Any Web Browser

A huge chunk of my life revolves around my computer, and whenever I'm on my laptop and get a text message notification on my phone, I find it extremely distracting to stop whatever I'm doing to hunt it down. That's why I'm a big fan of text messaging via my computer.

How To: 8 Things Every LG G3 Owner Should Know About Their Camera

Aside from its many high-end features, the camera on the LG G3 is up there with other heavy hitters like the Galaxy S5 and HTC One.

How To: Distress Signal Activated! Whistle to Find Your Misplaced Android Phone or Tablet Faster

How many times do you misplace your phone? Once a day? Twice? As much as you may hate losing your phone, it always seems to happen, and finding it isn't very easy if you left it on silent mode.

How To: Easily Share Your Complicated Wi-Fi Password Using Your Nexus 5

If you're like me, then you've got an incredibly complicated Wi-Fi password with uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.

How To: Explain Yourself Better by Turning Images into Shareable Videos with Annotations & Narration

Trying to explain something difficult over the phone can be pretty frustrating if the other person doesn't understand you. Using text messages can be useless for auditory learners, and a phone call won't do much good for a reading or visual learner.

How To: The Fastest, Easiest Way to Find & Share GIFs on Your iPad or iPhone

Emoji are great for conveying your exact emotion or mood in a text message, but GIF animations are even better. They're convenient, hilarious, and they accomplish so much more than a little icon or photo ever could.

How To: Find Your HTC One or Other Android Phone with a Text Message

Google's Android Device Manager makes it extremely easy to track down your phone or tablet, but while it's simple to set up and use, it does require your device to have an active data connection, which can be an issue in some areas.

How To: Stop Nosy Friends from Viewing More Photos on Android Than You Intended

You have a cool picture that you want to show someone, but when you hand your phone over, they start swiping through all of your photos. Surely, you've encountered this scenario before. I definitely have.

How To: Convert Your HTC One into a Developer Edition for Super Fast Sense Updates

HTC has made it their mission to get updates out to its devices as quickly as possible, with new builds slated for release 90-days after Google finalizes a build—this is dubbed HTC Advantage.

How To: Wake Up Less Cranky with an Alarm Clock for Android That Simulates the Sun Rising

Most alarms just make noise to wake you up, and it can be a bit jarring coming off of a deep sleep to suddenly being woken up by a blaring sound. On the flip side, if you're a heavy sleeper, this might not even be enough stimuli to snap you out of your 8-hour coma.

How To: Get Perfectly Composed, High-Res Selfies on Android Using Your Rear Camera

Maybe it is narcissistic to take selfies, but it has become a socially accepted norm, no matter how stupid you might look doing it. Since so many people are seemingly in love with themselves and mobile photography, I thought it was about time to show you how to step up your selfie game.

How To: Everything You Need to Know About iOS 8 Beta 5 for iPhone, iPad, & iPod Touch

Apple has just released iOS 8 beta 5 to developers, which is speculated to be the second-to-last beta build before they launch the gold master (GM) edition at the end of this month.

How To: Show Off Photos to Camera Roll Snoops on Your iPhone Without Any Risk

Last week, I showed off a deeply buried accessibility feature built into iOS 7 and 8 that lets you disable screen touches in certain apps. While useful for many reasons, I found it most helpful for preventing nosy family and friends from swiping through the Camera Roll when showing them a photo.

How To: Make Your Nexus 5's LED Notification Light Dance to the Music

Most of the time, the LED notification light on the front of your Android device just sits there doing nothing. Other than that brief period of time between when you receive a notification and when you turn your screen on, it's practically useless for anything other than showing when your charger is plugged in.

How To: Get Instant Access to Your Favorite Media Apps on Android When You Connect Your Headphones

Samsung's Galaxy devices, for all the grief they get about supposed "bloatware", offer quite a few functional features that are not included in stock Android. From "Air Gestures" to a handy "Smart Alert" notification reminder, many of these features are more than just the latest gimmick to pitch in their ads.

How To: Speed Up Charging Time on Your OnePlus One

My OnePlus One easily gets over a day of battery life without a problem, but when I try to charge it, it seems to take just as long. For some reason, no matter what charger you plug your OPO into, it never gets more than USB-level power, meaning that charging times are more than double when compared to traditional AC-charging.

How To: Root Your Amazon Kindle Fire HDX in Less Than 5 Minutes

Amazon released the Kindle Fire HDX back in late-2013, and if you picked one up or received one as a gift, you've probably had a good amount of time to get to know your tablet.

How To: Create Google Now Reminders Straight from Google Search on Your Computer

Google Now is a quick and intuitive way to tailor your device to work for you and, unlike other personal assistants, provide you with up-to-date information based on search habits, emails, and the general all-knowingness of Google.

How To: The Flat-Out Easiest Way to Create a Nandroid Backup on Android

If you have a custom recovery installed on your Android device, the first thing you should have done as soon as you finished installing it was to create a Nandroid backup. But if you didn't, I'm not here to judge—I'm here to show you a much easier way.

How To: Fix an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch That Won't Charge Anymore

If you've ever had issues charging your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, like most other Apple products, the culprit to blame is usually a frayed or damaged cable. It's a common design flaw due to the thinness of the cords and the weak sheath surrounding them — but that's not always the problem.

How To: Get Karaoke-Style Floating Lyrics for Any Song on Your HTC One

We've previously shown you an app called Floating Lyrics which displayed song lyrics in a, you guessed it, floating window. And while that app was great for any minimalist, it was pretty bare bones overall.

How To: Black Out System Apps on Your Samsung Galaxy S5 for Better Battery Life

As I've explained before, black app backgrounds save you a bit of battery life on your Samsung Galaxy S5. This is because the AMOLED display on your S5 does not have to power pixels or a backlight for portions of the screen that are black.

How To: Safely Manage All Your Two-Factor Authentications in Just One Android App

As great as the Internet is, it is not without its dangers. Hackers at any time may be breaking into your online accounts and compromising your sensitive information. Last year, hackers broke into Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter and made off with 2 million stolen passwords.

How To: Install Almost Any Google Play or Third-Party App on Your Amazon Kindle Fire HDX

Amazon's Appstore has come a long way since it launched in 2011, with over 250,000 apps to its name. That being said, their app numbers pale in comparison to Google's Play Store, which currently boosts over 1.3 million apps.

How To: Make an Arduino Shield

Two years ago, driven by a good friend of mine i decided to give it a try on timelapse photography. I had a DSLR camera but didn't had an intervalometer, so i assembled a small electronic circuit on top of an Arduino Uno, made some basic code and did my first timelapse movie. The result was awful, but for some reason I was hooked.

How To: Speed Up Your LG G3 in 10 Seconds Flat

Your new LG G3 is fast, no doubt about it. With a state-of-the-art Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM (dependent on model), there is more than enough under the hood for blazing fast speeds. The problem is, the device actually slows things down on purpose. This is meant so that you see all the cool transition animations LG put in place, providing for a sense of "change" as you navigate from one app or menu to another. But once you've used your device for a while, these animations can lose...

How To: Remove Button Clutter from the WhatsApp Interface on Android

If you're one of the millions of people who use the WhatsApp service for messaging, you've probably noticed a recent propensity that the app has had for adding buttons to its interface. Two such buttons have made their way into the message thread screen, cluttering up the interface with functionality that is a tad bit redundant.

How To: Switch Between Your Two Most Recent Apps Faster with a TV-Style “Return” Button for Android

There are a gazillion app switchers on the market, and some are really awesome, like Edge, GloveBox, Loopr, and Switchr, to name just a few. However, these can all be a little bit more complicated and cumbersome than necessary when I just want to switch back to the last app I was in.

How To: Swap Out Your Samsung Emoji for the More Popular Google & iOS Icon Sets

Emoji icons can vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer. Normally, this isn't be a problem, unless all of your friends use iPhones and you're the only one that receives a different icon than the rest of your group. And for the record, they don't all correspond to each other, which only makes using them that much more difficult.

How To: Send Photos, Videos, & Other Files That Automatically Self-Destruct on Android

Certain files contain sensitive data that you don't want being shared with just anybody. Even still, it would be nice to be able to send such a file to a certain confidante without fear of it falling into the wrong hands.

How To: Assign Apps Individual PINs & Passwords to Quick Launch Them from Your Lock Screen

Most times when you take your smartphone out of your bag, pocket, or purse, you probably know exactly what you're going to do with it. Make a call, send a text, take a selfie, browse viral videos on YouTube, or one of the other many things a smartphone can do nowadays.

How To: Quickly Track & Free Up Space in Your Cloud Storage

It seems like every cloud service out there is offering tons of upgrade options and free promotions to give people as much space as they need to store their files online. I personally have over 100GB of Google Drive space which is shared between multiple computers, phones, and tablets, so keeping track of everything can be a huge pain in the ass.