Gadget Hacks How-Tos
How To: Access Your Favorite Apps "Quickr" on Your Samsung Galaxy S3
To say that there are a lot of app switchers and launchers available is an understatement. We've covered a few ourselves, including Loopr and Switchr. But why not check out one more?
How To: Everything You Need to Know About Apple's 4th Beta for iOS 7.1 on the iPad, iPhone, & iPod Touch
Well, that was quick. A little over a week after releasing the third beta for iOS 7.1, Apple presented a fourth build to developers.
How To: Make Secure Phone Calls Without Using Your Cellular Network for Enhanced Encryption
In the wake of the NSA controversy and its subsequent fallout, many dashed towards finding means of secure communication—using private internet browsing and encrypted text messaging applications—out of fear of being spied on.
How To: Watch the 2014 Super Bowl XLVIII Commercials Right Now
This year's NFL playoffs have been nothing short of spectacular. With Super Bowl XLVIII coming up on Sunday, February 2nd, people are already gearing up for another classic showdown between the NFC and AFC, and this time it's the Seattle Seahawks versus the Denver Broncos.
How To: Speed Up Your iPhone by Removing the Super Slow Transition Animations
When iOS 7 was released, there were actually news reports of people getting disoriented and sick due to the motion of the parallax effect, along with the speedy animations when opening and closing apps and folders.
How To: Stream Your Google Play Movies & TV Shows on an iPad or iPhone
Apple and Google are not only two of the biggest names in the tech world, but also two of the biggest competitors. So, it's no surprise that you can't watch movies or TV shows purchased from iTunes on an Android device. Likewise, you can't watch any videos purchased on Google Play with your iPad or iPhone—until now.
How To: What Kind of Porn Are Your Neighbors Watching—And How Much?
Most people keep their ungodly sexual desires deep inside, only to be indulged in private on their computers. It makes you wonder... what secrets do your neighbors have? What kind of porn are they watching? And how much and for how long? Thanks to some public (and anonymous) data, you can now find out.
How To: Add Ambient Album Art to Your Lock Screen When Listening to Music in iOS 7
One of many cool features in iOS is the ability to listen to your Music app and have the player options, as well as album art, available on your lock screen. While that's super convenient, it's not all that easy on the eyes. The player is placed over a blurred version of whatever your lock screen wallpaper is.
Dropping the Beat: How to Make Google Translate Beatbox for You
I know that after seeing 8 Mile for the first time, you and your friends tried a few freestyles yourself. Nothing to be embarrassed about. As one person dropped the beat, you started your stuttering flow, and everyone else nodded their head. And for a second you probably thought you sounded pretty good, until the beat maker started coughing and threw you off.
How To: The Fastest Way to Roll Through Multitasking Cards in iOS 7.1
Apple baked multitasking and quick app switching into iOS back in 2010 with the launch of iOS 4, but the multitasking view changed in iOS 7 to show previews of the apps you have open. Unfortunately, this made swiping through open apps slower than before.
Quick Tip: Chrome Has a Built-in Task Manager to Help Fix Your Misbehaving Tabs
I can't tell you how many times I've force-closed or restarted Chrome due to it freezing or loading pages incorrectly. And don't even get me started on that obnoxious "Aw, Snap!" error. I guess you could say I have a love-hate relationship with my most used browser.
How To: Get Majestic App Icons on Your iPhone with This iOS 7 Winterboard Theme
Winterboard for iOS 7 allowed us to use some pretty great-looking themes. Circulus and Space BlueBerry are both great, but a little too "fun" for me. If you want something serious, yet appealing to the eye, then M'flat is for you.
How To: Set Different Wallpapers for Home & Lock Screens on Your Nexus 7 Tablet
There are countless things you can do to your lock screen to customize it, including adding app shortcuts that adapt to your time and location or custom widgets with DashClock. However, one thing you can't easily do in KitKat is change your lock screen background to be different from your home screen wallpaper.
How To: Ditch Your Boring Alarm Sound & Wake Up to a Real Voice on Your Samsung Galaxy S3
The movie Her is getting a lot of love from viewers and critics alike. While I find it kind of creepy to fall in love with a computer program, if Scarlett Johansson talked to me every day, I'd probably fall in love too.
How To: Add iOS 7-Style Blur Effects to Backgrounds on Your Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Apple's implementation of blurred backgrounds was met with mixed reception in concurrence with iOS 7's release. Some viewed the design as rather dull and headache-inducing, while others like myself enjoyed it because the translucency created a more focused and noticeable foreground.
How To: Root Your Nexus 5—An Easy Guide for First-Timers
It's time. You've experimented with apps from the Play Store, you've switched your lock screen, and maybe you've taken different launchers out for a spin. If, throughout your tinkering, you've found yourself chanting, "More. More. Give me more!" then now is the time. It's time to root.
How To: Your Starbucks Habit Could Be Putting Your Personal Data at Risk
Starbucks' app is the most used mobile payment app in the U.S. because it's well-designed and convenient. But if you use the iOS version on your iPhone, your username, email address, password and location data could be compromised because the app stores them in plain text.
How To: Control the Text Cursor Using the Volume Keys on Your Samsung Galaxy S4
One of the most frustrating things about full touchscreen phones, especially for those coming from one with a physical keyboard, is typing and editing text. Whether it's a quick text message, or Swyping out a full e-mail, it sucks realizing you've messed up a few words and have to go back and fix them.
How To: Fix Wallpaper Zooming Issues in Apple's New iOS 7.1 for iPad, iPhone, & iPod Touch
When the first version of iOS 7 was released, there was a wealth of awesome new features, but there was also a lot to complain about. The biggest issue by far was, and still is, how custom home and lock screen wallpapers work on iPads and iPhones.
How To: Open the Air Command Menu Without Using the S Pen on Your Galaxy Note 3
Improved S Pen functionality materialized in the form of Air Command controls on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, allowing users to access shortcuts for their stylus features from anywhere on the screen. While the pie-interface controls are extremely useful, the only way to access them is when the S Pen is removed—making it impossible to use otherwise.
No More Crappy Vertical Videos: This App Auto-Levels Your iPhone Vids Horizontally
It's pretty much agreed upon that all videos taken on your cell phone should be shot horizontally, i.e. landscape mode. The viewing size is already small, so making it skinnier only exacerbates the problem. Viewing vertical videos is terrible, and when you transfer those videos to your computer, it's even worse.
Forget Boring Ringtones: How to Make Your Phone Announce Your Caller's Name Instead
Wouldn't it be cool to know exactly who is calling or messaging you without ever looking at your phone? It'd be a great way to keep you from reaching into your pocket or purse every time you get a message, and an efficient method to ignore people you'd rather not deal with.
How To: Add a Pulsating Battery Energy Bar to Your Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Long before Windows Phone hit the scene, Windows Mobile was the operating system for Microsoft's older brand of smartphones through the early 2000s. But due to its clunkiness and inability to keep up with modern features, it was scrapped in 2010.
Get Your Lazy Ass Out of Bed: 3 Ways Your Nexus 7 Can Keep You from Oversleeping
Oversleeping isn't just an epidemic that affects millions of hungover college students every year, we all want that extra minute or two of sleep. Unfortunately, oversleeping and showing up late to work or class isn't something we can generally afford to do.
How To: The Easiest Way to Find Creative Commons Images for Anything You Want
Sometimes I actually search Google Images for things other than GIFs and pictures of athletes' extremely hot wives. Google Images has helped me with school projects, work, and proving my friends wrong on numerous occasions. Unless you're strictly using it for the latter, you're going to have to be aware of copyrights.
How To: Set Up a Pandora Alarm Clock on Your iPhone for a Less Annoying Start to Your Day
Waking up to my Night Owl iOS alarm has grown beyond old. I'd switch it up to one of the other ones, but I pretty much hate all of them. Thankfully, Pandora added an alarm clock feature to their application. Godspeed Pandora, Godspeed.
How To: De-Grumpify Your Mornings by Waking Up to Your Favorite Pandora Stations
I listen to Pandora as I slowly drift off to sleep, so why not have the popular music app wake me up as well? Pandora only recently introduced the Alarm Clock feature on iOS, and now they've brought that same feature to Android—only it's better.
How To: Turn Your Personal Handwriting into a Custom Font for a More Unique Look
There are thousands of fonts you can download online. Some are free, some you have to pay for, but they all have something in common—if you can get them, so can everyone else. If you want a truly unique font that no one else is using, you have to make your own, and what's more unique than your own handwriting?
How To: Watch the First Episode of Black Sails a Week Early
I have been a fan of pirates ever since I downloaded my first movie on LimeWire. Wait, wrong pirates. I guess real pirates are pretty cool too. Johnny Depp brought pirates back into the spotlight with his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. And a Somali pirate from Captain Phillips got nominated for a Golden Globe.
Pro Tip: How to Text Best Buy & Other Businesses for Quick Information on Gadget Availability
I wonder if Best Buy has any Note 3's for sale?? When trying to figure out when something is in stock, we usually either check online or call the store to talk to someone. If certain products are out of stock the process might be tedious, with having to find phone numbers and calling several stores.
How To: Get Lenovo's Exclusive Super Camera Apps on Your Galaxy Note 3
Lenovo brought out the big guns for CES 2014, with the Vibe Z showcased as the Chinese company's' first foray into the LTE smartphone space. Slated for a February release, the ultra-thin and extremely light smartphone will certainly be in the running for top smartphones of this very new year. Photo via CNET
How To: Fix an Inconsistent Orientation Sensor on Your Samsung Galaxy S3
The sensors in your mobile device are integral for gaming (try to beat my Temple Run 2 score), as well as many of the basic Galaxy S3 features like Smart Stay and other fancy additions. But sometimes those sensors can become overly sensitive or just downright unusable.
How To: Lock Individual Apps to Prevent Friends from Snooping on Your Samsung Galaxy S3
Keeping unwanted clowns off on my Samsung Galaxy S3 is priority number one. I've shown you how to snag a picture of people opening your apps and how to lock your screen for whenever you hand off your phone, allowing them to access only the page you left open.
How To: Get Super Fast Access to Your Favorite App with a Quick Swipe on Your iOS 7 iPhone
In a previous guide, I showed you how to add a 5th app to your icon dock. This is both useful and cool-looking. Unfortunately, cramming a 6th would be make the tapping area too small, so instead I'll show you how to save space by making your most used app easily accessible with a simple swiping gesture.
How To: The Easiest and Fastest Way to Pick the Best Shot Out of Multiple Photos on Your Galaxy Note 3
When we take pictures with our smartphones, it’s safe to assume we’re taking more than one. We're either trying to capture the right light, look, or expression… or maybe a slight nod to the right to show off your good side.
How To: Customize Your iOS 7 Texting App's Message Bubbles to Use Whatever Colors You Want
Conversations can be a little stale sometimes, so a little color help add some life. AOL realized this In the early days of AIM, and let you customize your colors just the way you want. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't let you go into your settings to customize your messaging app's colors, but with this awesome and effective tweak you can. All you need is a jailbroken iOS 7 iPhone or iPad, which is easily achieved.
How To: Easily Close All Safari Tabs at Once in iOS 7 for iPhone & iPad
Closing all of your tabs open in Safari is not an exceptionally quick task—you have the choice of either tapping the X on the left edge of each page or swiping each tab to the left of the screen. If you have a load of tabs open, you'll have to swipe or tap through all of them. Instead of wasting time, I'm going to show you the quick way of closing all of the open tabs in Safari.
Touch, Don't Press: Extend the Lifespan of Your iPhone 5s Home Key
Take a minute and think about how many times a day you press the home key on your iPhone . . . a lot, right? It is quite literally the most important button on your device. If the home key stops working, you won't be able to multitask or back out of apps to go to your home screen, so preserving its life should be priority, otherwise you're stuck using one of these tips for fixing your home button. Luckily, for 5S users, you can add a tweak that will utilize your touch ID sensor, instead of ha...
How To: Customize Your Ringer for More Advanced Contact-by-Contact Control
There are two scenarios that absolutely suck when someone calls you. The first is when you accidentally pick up a call you seriously didn't want to take. Debt collectors (thanks college), crazy exes, or that one guy from work. And the other is when you miss a super important call and can't get a hold of them afterwards.
How To: Running Low on Storage? Safely Clear the Cache of All of Those Hungry Third-Party Apps on Your Galaxy Note 3
Repetitive use of apps over time will eat up your storage space with by caching data on your device. This can be useful at first, speeding up your apps by not requiring them to re-download frequently used data, but as a cache grows, even the initial performance improvements can be outweighed by the unwelcomed loss of storage space. And if a cache grows too large, the time it takes an app to access the cached data can be even slower than the time it would've taken to re-download the data in th...