Gadget Hacks How-Tos

How To: Set up and use Google Alerts content monitoring service

Want to receive daily, weekly or monthly updates on a subject of your choice? With Google Alerts, it's easy! So easy, in fact, that this home computing how-to from the folks at Easily can present a complete (and somewhat talky) overview of the process in just under five minutes' time. For the specifics, and to get started setting up and using Google Alerts yourself, just watch this handy how-to.

How To: Automatically promote your blog to search engines with Ping-o-Matic

Looking for a convenient way to advertise your blog and promote your content? With Ping-o-Matic, it's easy! So easy, in fact, that this home computing how-to from the folks at Easily can present a complete (and somewhat talky) overview of the process in just under six minutes' time. For the specifics, and to get started using Ping-o-Matic to promote your own blog, just watch this handy how-to.

How To: Get started using the Google Web Toolkit web development tools

Need some help figuring out how to get started with the Google Web Toolkit? It's easy! So easy, in fact, that this home computing how-to from the folks at Easily can present a complete (and somewhat talky) overview of the process in just under six minutes' time. For the specifics, and to get started setting up and using Google's official web development tools yourself, just watch this handy how-to.

How To: Change the video thumbnail on a YouTube video

Stuck with an unflattering video thumbnail on YouTube? Change it. Let this video be your guide. It's easy and this clip presents a complete, step-by-step overview of the process. For more information, including detailed instructions, and to get started deliberately choosing your own YouTube thumbs, take a look.

How To: Search for four different things on Google at once

Interested in submitting up to four different Google queries all at once? Let this video be your guide. With GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle.com, it's easy and this clip presents a complete, step-by-step overview of the process. For more information, including detailed instructions, and to get started using this trick yourself, take a look.

How To: Resize a web browser window with the Browize web app

Looking for an easy way to resize a web browser window to a particular set of dimensions? Let this video be your guide. It's easy and this clip presents a complete, step-by-step overview of the process. For more information, including detailed instructions, and to get started using Browize to resize your own browser windows, take a look.

How To: Use the Google Moderator module on YouTube

Need some help figuring out how to make use of the Google Moderator Module? Let this video be your guide. It's easy and this clip presents a complete, step-by-step overview of the process. For more information, including detailed instructions, and to get started using the Moderator tool yourself, take a look.

How To: Make free online domestic phone calls in Gmail using Google Voice & Video Chat

Forget Skype. Google's in the market for online phones, and their answer lies within Gmail. It's call Google Voice and Video Chat, and it allows you to make free domestic phone calls from within North America (United States & Canada). This phone service is indeed free, but it does charge for international rates. This video walks you through some of the features, so you can start making free online phone calls with Google Voice.

How To: Compare prices when shopping online with Invisiblehand for Mozilla Firefox

Wish there were a way to automatically find the best prices when shopping online? Well, there is. And with the Invisiblehand add-on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser, it's easy! So easy, in fact, that this home-computing how-to can present a complete overview of the process in just over two minutes. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, and to get started using this extension yourself, watch this video guide.

How To: Read eBooks on a Google Android smartphone with the Amazon Kindle app

Interested in using your Google Android cell phone to read your eBooks when away from your Amazon Kindle eReader? With the free Amazon Kindle app, it's easy. And this brief video tutorial from the folks at Butterscotch will teach you everything you need to know. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, and to get started reading books on your own Google Android smartphone, take a look.

How To: Browse and set personalized themes in Gmail

There a ways to personalize your Gmail experience, and one of those is picking personalized Gmail themes which make emailing funner. But if you're not sure what kind of theme you want to use from all the available Gmail theme choices, there's an option called "Random" which provides you a random theme based on your geographical location, and will change when in a different location.

How To: Set random themes in Gmail using your current location

There a ways to personalize your Gmail experience, and one of those is picking personalized Gmail themes which make emailing funner. But if you're not sure what kind of theme you want to use from all the available Gmail theme choices, there's an option called "Random" which provides you a random theme based on your geographical location, and will change when in a different location.

How To: Prevent Cydia crashes on your iPhone or iPod Touch

In order to stop Cydia from crashing on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you'll need an iPhone or iPod with firmware 3.1.1, 3.1, 3.0.1, or 3.0, SSH installed both in your computer and in your device. Now first SSH your device into your computer and navigate to /var/lib/dpkg/updates. Delete the files named as 0000, 0001, 0002 and so on. Now your Cydia should work fine. If that doesn't work, try reinstalling Cydia on your iPhone or iPod Touch, as it could be a different problem.

How To: Get Internet tethering and MMS on your iPhone working

First go to "help.benm.at/" in safari and click on mobileconfigs, choose your country, choose your carrier and click on install. Now after that you have to reboot your iPhone. Now go to your settings, general, network and click on Internet tethering and turn it on. Now it will ask you to connect via USB or via Bluetooth, choose whatever you want. Now turn the airport option off in your mac and go to preferences, networks and now there you can see the connection between your iPhone and the com...

How To: Program Geolocation on the iPhone

In this video, we learn how to program Geolocation on the iPhone. First, start up Xcode and start a new project. Name this "where am I" and then expand out your groups. Now, type in "corelocation/corelocation.h" and "mapkit/mapkit.h" in the view controller and space file. Type in the rest of the code to the program, then open up the program on your computer. Drag and drop the tabs into the viewing window, then grab buttons and other tabs to go onto the screen for the phone. Once finished, sav...

How To: Improve the quaity of your YouTube video playback

You can improve the quality of the video you watch on YouTube. Sometimes when you watch the video in YouTube, probably you will have notice that the video is little blurry or text which is being shown in that video is blurry like low quality video. So you can improve it by just adding a little code in the url of that video. So put that code "&fmt=18" in the end of the url of that video and press the enter key and that's it. Now you can see the difference between before and now. The video qual...

How To: Understand circuit bending

In this video, we learn how to understand circuit bending. Circuit bending is noodling around with circuitry to see how it sounds and get different noises out of it. When you go into a motherboard and see the circuits that are inside of it, these can make noise if you re-circuit them. This can help you be creative and turn the electronic circuit board into a canvas. This can let someone immediately create something out of this and use it as an art form. It takes trial and error to find someth...

How To: Set up a Weebly website

In this video, we learn how to set up a Weebly website. This can be used to build a complete site with multiple pages. First, go to Weebly and enter in your information under the sign up now text. Next, click the sign up button and enter in the Captcha phrase. After this, title your new site and continue on until you see the tabs at the top of the screen. Elements, designs, pages, and settings will all be listed. Go through the designs until you find one you like, then settle on that. Once yo...

How To: Make and manage a YouTube group

You can make and manage a YouTube group. So first thing you need to do that is to open up your web browser and go to YouTube. Now sign in and go to your account, choose groups in more section. Now to make a group you have to click on create a group. Now fill up the fields like group name, tags etc. and click on create group. Now click on groups under your modules tab and click save changes. Now you need to click on group in your channel to manage it. Now there you can manage your group like a...

How To: Upload and install a Thesis theme for WordPress

First go to your word press admin and click add new themes in appearance options. Now click on upload and then click browse. Now you have to locate your theme in .zip format and then click install now. If you have successfully uploaded that then you will get a message "theme installed successfully". Now you can click on preview to preview your theme, if you think it's fine then you can click on activate to activate your theme. If you want to change the font color, layout etc. then click on de...

How To: Put a search box in Thesis theme navigation bar

First go to your word press admin and click on "custom file editor" in thesis options. Select custom_function.php in file selected menu and click on "edit selected file". Because of warning, we need to do it via ftp. So go to that ftp path which is showing in the video and open up the launch.php. Now copy that code which is showing in the video and past it in there, close and save the file. Now to change the style of your search box, go to your custom file editor, select the custom.css and cl...