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iOS 18 Tips, Tricks, How-Tos, News

How To: Repair or Replace Your Broken Headphone Jacks

If you haven't met a person that's broken a pair of headphones, you might need to get out more. No matter how expensive or cheap a pair of headphones are, the sound can get buggy, the wire can get cut, or the headphone jack itself can be broken or ripped off the cord. But instead of buying a new set of headphones or borrowing the ones from your cousin with the earwax problem, you can easily fix it yourself.

How To: Replace Your Apple iPhone 5's Cracked Screen

Apple's new iPhone 5 has enjoyed three weeks out in the public since its September 21st release. Millions of consumers have been shelling out big bucks and waiting in long lines just to get their hands on it. But sometimes users forget to actually keep their hands on their new phone, causing something like this... It only takes a second to drop your new iPhone 5, but the pain of picking up the phone and turning it over to reveal a cracked display lasts a lifetime. Well, not exactly a lifetime...

How To: See Who's Clogging Up Your Wi-Fi Network with These Free Mobile Apps

Android has released a new application called ezNetScan, which is a free app that scans the wireless network you're connected to and gives you a full log of all of the devices connected to that network. This isn't new for smartphone users, let alone Android users. Fing has been around for a while and does practically the same thing that exNetScan does. It gathers information such as the IP and MAC addresses, device vendors, and ISP location. But while Fing is a great program, it does lack a f...

How To: This DIY Illuminated Isomorphic Keyboard Changes Colors as You Play Music

An isomorphic (or self-transposing) keyboard is "a musical device where a grid of notes is displayed to the user and the interval change between notes in constant for any given direction." For those of you who didn't grow up playing the piano like I did, that basically means that it lets you move between keys easily without having to learn new patterns because the keys are laid out so that a chord is the same pattern in every musical key.

How To: Make Room for Your New Gadgets (And Get Some Cash in the Process)

There's nothing like buying an awesome new gadget, but it leaves you with one problem (besides an empty wallet)—what do you do with the ones you already have? There are plenty of ways to put your old gadgets to use, but if you'd rather get rid of them, you may as well get something out of it, right? Here are five places where you can recycle your electronics and replenish your cash stash.

How To: Automatically Delete Spam Messages in Gmail

Most of the spam messages are commercial advertisements, phishing websites and get rich quickly messages that asks users to provide personal details and other confidential information.Spam filters in Gmail prevent its users from these spam messages and restrict them to enter in user’s Gmail inbox.Generally, it acts like a firewall between spam messages and Gmail Inbox.Gmail filters detect the sender’s email address and accordingly send the received messages in Inbox or Spam folder.

How To: This DIY Xbox LIVE Traffic Light Tells You When Your Friends Are Gaming

Games are always more fun when you have someone to play them with, but if you're not always logged in to your Xbox LIVE account, how do you know when your friends are online? You can always log in and check, but where's the fun in that when you can hack together a traffic light to do it for you? Andrew F hooked up an Arduino with an Ethernet shield to check every five minutes to see how many of his Xbox LIVE friends are online. For each friend, it records either a zero or a one, depending on ...

How To: Are Your Cloud Documents Safe from Hackers? Make Sure with These Free Cloud-Worthy Encryption Programs

The convenience of storing things on the cloud can definitely make life easier, but if you're storing sensitive files, it could be a total disaster if anyone hacked your account. Some encryption services can be expensive, but if you just need it for personal use, there are some really great ones that don't cost anything. Here are three programs that let you encrypt your cloud storage for free. BoxCryptor

How To: Sync Your Google Contacts with Your iOS Device Using CardDAV

If you have an iPhone or iPad, but use a Google account for most of your communication, syncing your contacts just got a lot easier. Google recently announced that they added CardDAV support, an open protocol that lets you seamlessly integrate Google Contacts into other services. Google states that "Syncing via CardDAV is only available over SSL for Apple devices on iOS version 5.0 and above." So, if you're running an older iOS version, you'll have to use Google Sync instead.

How To: Opt Out of Facebook's Creepy New Ad-Targeting Partnership with Datalogix

As if you needed another reason to lock down your Facebook profile, the company's sketchy new partnership with data mining firm Datalogix is geared towards giving advertisers more information on what you're doing—even when you're not online. It's just not enough that they can target ads based on your preferences, now they want to know how those ads are influencing your buying habits in the real world.

How To: Design Your Own iPhone 5 Case for Less Than $5

So, you've got your new iPhone 5 from Apple, but wait—where do you get a case for it? Since its launch, Apple Stores across the country have been carrying absolutely zero iPhone 5 cases. In fact, the only thing they seem to be carrying right now as far as iPhone 5 accessories goes is the new Lightning cable. So, when will they be getting cases? Rumors state October sometime, but there's no telling if it's now or at the end of the month.

How To: Use Your "Dead" Car Battery to Power Emergency Fans, Lighting, and More!

A common misconception is that all car batteries die. This, in fact, isn't true—the majority of "dead" car batteries just don't contain enough juice to power a car, but they can still provide enough watts to keep emergency fans and lighting running, which is great when a power outage occurs. So, instead of lugging the battery to the nearest drop-off center or just letting it collect dust in the garage, you can put that car battery to good use.

How To: 3 Free Alternatives to Apple's iPhoto

Firstly, I'd like to say that I have nothing against iPhoto; it's a great application that works wonderfully in Mac OS X. Unfortunately, when you no longer have iPhoto on your MacBook—and you don't want to pay for it—looking for an alternative is a necessary endeavor. I could sit here and try to explain to you how I updated to Lion and then inexplicably dragged the iPhoto application into the trash—and proceeded to empty said trash. I could tell you guys that story, but I fear you might judge...

How To: Paste Text and Images as Files Directly from Your Clipboard

If you're doing research that includes a lot of copy/pasting, it can get really tedious to open a new document every time you want to save something. Luckily, you can cut out the extra step and save text and images that are currently in your clipboard directly to a folder or your desktop—without the hassle of creating file after file. Here's how to do it on both Windows and Mac OS X. Windows

How To: New Malware App Turns Your Android Phone's Camera into a Data Stealing Spy

Robert Templeman from the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana and several of his friends from Indiana University recently developed an Android application that is capable of gathering pictures and videos from mobile devices in order to reconstruct a user's environment in 3D. The malware would come coded inside of a camera application that the user would download. The malware, called PlaceRaider, would then randomly take pictures throughout the day and carefully piece them together ...

How To: Shut Down Your PC and Send Other Commands Remotely Through Twitter Using TweetMyPC

Ever been halfway to work or school and suddenly remembered you forgot to log off your computer? A lot of people are constantly logged in to email and social media accounts, so if you have a mischievous roommate or sibling, this situation could be disastrous. That's where TweetMyPC comes in—it's a free Windows application that lets you send commands to your computer just by tweeting. Image by Twittermania

How To: Oops! Hit "Send" Too Soon? Here's How to Recall Sent Emails on Almost Any Platform

Send an email prematurely? Forgot to attach a file? Accidentally addressed it to the wrong person? It happens to the best of us. But what can you do to get it back? Hack into the other person's email account and delete the email before they get a chance to see it? Unless you're a hacker extraordinaire, that option is unlikely. So, what can you do? If the email has already been sent, you're probably out of luck. Even if they didn't read it yet, your chances of retrieving it are slim. But some ...

How To: Turn Any Magazine into an iPhone Stereo Sound Dock

Coca-Cola has unleashed a brilliant marketing campaign to celebrate the one year anniversary of their online Coca-Cola.FM radio in South America. In the latest issue of the popular Brazilian magazine, Capricho, the Coca-Cola advertisement literally turns the magazine into an iPhone amplifier. Attached on top of the real cover, the advert has two precisely placed flaps on the back page. Simply roll up the magazine, secure the flaps, then pop in your iPhone. Check out the video to see exactly h...