Gadget Hacks How-Tos

How To: Make Siri More Powerful on Your iPhone by Adding These Extra Voice Commands

While Siri may be the cream of the crop when it comes to smartphone personal assistants, there is always room to grow bigger and better (that's what she said). Siri, although recently expanded, is still lacking in the amount of commands and actions she can currently perform. While looking up directions and restaurants is fairly easy for Siri, asking her to gain access to third-party programs or browsers is a little more difficult.

How To: Need a Remote for Your MacBook? Use Your Android Device

As most everyone knows, Android and Apple don't get along so well. Even the users don't get along well, with Android and iPhone users constantly berating and insulting each other online—any chance they get. I should know, since I was one of them, but I'm now rare breed who's learned to appreciate both. People just need to realize that they have their own unique strengths—Android with its customization and Apple with its simplicity.

How To: Fix Your Hacked and Malware-Infested Website with Google

While websites may run smoothly without any noticeable vulnerabilities, there's always the looming threat that any background weakness in the site can be exploited by hackers. Once a site is compromised, it can be difficult to get it fixed without the proper help. Google has recently launched a new series entitled "Webmasters help for hacked sites”, which teaches web developers and site owners how to avoid getting hacked and how to recover their website if it gets compromised in any way.

How To: Get Siri to Play Music for You on Spotify—Without Jailbreaking Your iPhone

While Siri's integration with the iPhone is becoming increasingly substantial, restrictions with the intelligent personal assistant are apparent when it comes to third-party apps like Google Maps, Netflix, and Spotify (unless your iPhone is jailbroken, of course). As an avid Spotify user, it's distressing that I can't use Siri to navigate through the music streaming service's extensive library. In the car, I use Spotify about 90% of the time and it can become increasingly frustrating to chang...

How To: Install Multi-View on Your Samsung Galaxy S3 to Run Multiple Apps at the Same Time

While many of the U.S. carriers have updated their Samsung Galaxy S3 devices to Android 4.1.2 already, one major absence from the upgrade is Samsung's Premium Suite. One of the coolest features from the Premium Suite is Multi-View, a function that lets you truly multitask by running two apps at the very same time—right next to each other. As you can see above in the left image, I have both Pandora and Spotify running. Why? Because why not?!? On the right, I have YouTube on top and Maps on the...

How To: Dumping Your iPhone for a New Sony Xperia Z? Here's How You Seamlessly Transfer Your Data

With the Xperia Z release for most major U.S. carriers expected sometime very shortly, many are both excited and curious at Sony's new flagship device. Much of the hype surrounding the new smartphone has stemmed from several ads that Sony has released, touting their waterproof phone to be as innovative as their Trinitron, PlayStation, and Walkman brands. Your worries about dropping your phone in a tiny fishbowl are finally over.

How To: Automatically Update All of Your Google Play and Third-Party Android Apps

With the Google Play store on your Android device, it's a relatively easy process to check all of your application updates. All you have to do is launch the Market app, go to the My Apps section, and from there you'll be able to see all of the available updates for your applications, which should be positioned at the top of the list. The problem with this process is that many times, you'll go days or weeks and quite possibly even months without checking the Google Play application market, lea...