Gadget Hacks How-Tos

How To: Stay Anonymous on Your Nexus 7

When browsing the web, you may not be quite as anonymous as you think, especially if you are using public WiFi. The easiest way to stay as anonymous and safe as you are going to get, is to use a VPN (there are a number of great free ones). In this tutorial, we will show you how to set up a VPN on Android, and how this protects you.

How To: Root Android L—The Easy Way

While the preview images for Android's upcoming "L" release just came out yesterday, the new firmware has already been rooted, as is standard with its openness. So if you were feeling reluctant to try Android L because it didn't support existing root methods, then you might want to reconsider.

How To: Unlock Android Lollipop's Hidden Battery Percentage Icon in the Status Bar

When a big company (Google) concentrates on big things (Auto, TV, Wear), some of the smaller aspects of their design can be overlooked. Just as we saw in Android KitKat, battery percentage information is absent from the status bar. While we were able to enable a hidden setting to show that all-important number in KitKat, you could see why it was never enabled—the white text on the white battery icon made it nearly impossible to read.

How To: See First Twit of Any User in Twitter

This video will show you how to see first twit of any user in twitter. You could type https://www.first-tweets.com in address bar and the site will be redirected to another place https://www.discover.twitter.com/first -tweet page. You have to enter the user name and twitter will fetch the first twit of that user. Watch the video and employ it yourself.

How To: Unjailbreak Your iPhone & Restore It Back to Factory Settings

Jailbreaking gives you root access to the iOS file system, allowing you to install third-party apps and tweaks on your iPhone that aren't available in the App Store. It opens up a whole new realm for what your device can do, but it can also cause instability across the system and can dissuade you from getting future updates from Apple that have important features, bug fixes, and security enhancements.

How To: Get the New Android L "Heads Up" Notifications on Your Nexus 5 or Other Android Device

We got a fairly extensive look at the newest version of Android at Google I/O yesterday. The "L" version, which we're betting stands for "Lollipop", brings Google's new design philosophy to Android, and one of the main aspects of that design are new "heads up" notifications. Allowing you to continue using whatever app you're currently in without interuption, this new type of alert borrows from Apple's iOS, but does it the Android way. These notifications can be dismissed with a swipe away, ex...

How To: SIM-Unlock Your HTC One for Free

Mobile carriers have been the bane of my existence for as long as I've had a phone. First, they take away unlimited data, and then when you try and switch carriers, they hold your phone hostage for a up to a week before unlocking it from their network.